Exodus
by SuperSonic21
Summary: TFW mutants!AU. Sam, Dean and Castiel are Men of Letters: a group of mutants who try to put right the bad things that rogue mutants have done to society. But when Castiel claims to hear the voice of God one night, they find themselves embroiled in a mystery that could lead to the end of the world. *On hiatus until the holidays*
1. Chapter 1

_**AN: **So I received this prompt on Tumblr from wwtgrace13:  
__"How about writing an AU where Sam, Dean, and Castiel are mutants and they have to fight against the bad mutants (demons, __shifters, vamps, _etc.) and anti-mutant people. Just thought it would be something." 

_This really grabbed my attention because - as some of you may know! - I really love superpowers AUs (for example my spn/tdkr crossover '_Hellfire_' and the Sherlock fanfic series staring with '_A Study In Silver_'). Plus, I am a MASSIVE fans of the X-Men films and comics (in case you were wondering, that's the type of mutants we're dealing with here). _

_This is set around season 4, and will be a massively AU version of that season. All will be explained throughout the story - but if you have any pressing questions, feel free to ask!_

_Let me know if you enjoy this :)_

* * *

"I can't tell for sure, but I _think _there's just the one shifter out there. Loads of human perps though,"  
"Why do bad things happen to good people?" Dean groaned quietly from their position in the storage cupboard, just off the large main lobby of the bank.  
"I think the case here is more like 'why do bad things happen to _you'_," Sam countered.  
"Shut up. I'm a good person,"  
"Whatever, man," Sam teased.  
"Can we just get this over with?" Dean asked irritably, eyeing a mop critically in the light from the keyhole.  
"I think what Dean suggests is wise," Cas put in hastily.  
"That's a first – ow! That was my foot!" Sam hissed.  
"Quit bitchin'. I'm going after the shifter," Dean declared.  
"How do you know which one it is?" Sam asked warily, and even in the poor light, Dean could sense his impatient eye roll.

Sam and Cas checked their ammunition in the meagre light, each carrying a shotgun, with two pistols in holsters in addition. Dean didn't tend to carry things that reacted poorly at high temperatures. He had a knife, though, as always.

"I'm sure I'll be able to tell," Dean replied condescendingly.  
"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were the one out of the three of us that can sense when people are lying," Came the snarky reply from his brother.  
"No, you're right, I'm not, but I _am _the one in full control of my powers,"  
"Dean!" The elder Winchester winced slightly, as both his comrades told him off at once.  
". . . I believe we should attack now before we are discovered," Cas decided.  
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever, feathers," Dean muttered before they made their move.

They burst out of the closet at once, making short work of the journey to the main lobby, and catching the bank robbers by surprise.

Sam and Cas fired quickly and efficiently at their enemies, while Dean merely set a few of them on fire with a wink. They were immediately met with return gunfire from several of the bank robbers, though – the ones who identified themselves as such, anyway. It was common for robbers to hire shapeshifters to kill and replace bank staff or customers, so that if someone decided to break in and take them on, they could pretend to be a civilian until the last possible moment. By then, for the would-be rescuer, it was too late.

It was expensive, though. This robbery was fairly small-scale; they'd only hired one shifter to pretend to be a hostage that Sam could make out.

The three of them headed for separate corners of the room, ducking for cover and eyeing everyone – robbers and civilians alike – with suspicion. There were a few large plant pots and decorative marble blocks to hide behind. As previously agreed, they'd split up: more targets meant their enemies had to split their attention.

However, when Cas and Sam arrived in their separate hiding places after dodging haphazard gunfire, they didn't find them uninhabited: only Dean, whose giant plant pot was slightly too close the bank robbers' position for comfort, found his position empty.

In Cas' corner, behind a marble block, a wounded man who'd been shot in the gut earlier for protesting against the hostage situation was experiencing his death throes, with only another hostage – an employee of the bank with a dislocated shoulder who had no idea what to do – as his companion.  
"I – I didn't know what to – oh God, help him, please-" She was babbling. Cas ignored her.

He looked down at the severely injured man blankly from where he was kneeling, and saw the complete desperation in his eyes.  
"Please," He begged softly, though even he didn't know what he was asking for: life, death – just no more pain, Cas presumed. He could do that.

He took the man's shaking hand, and pressed two fingers against his forehead with his free hand.  
"Sleep now," He told the wounded man, whom he had healed in the blink of an eye. The man fell into unconsciousness on command.

Sam, meanwhile, was communicating with another injured hostage behind a marble block parallel to Cas'.  
"Stay calm, help's on the way," He murmured to the woman, who was bleeding from the chest. He supposed the jagged glass sticking out from her skin was planted there by the hostage-takers, using charges to get through the bullet-proof glass of the bank-tellers' positions. Glancing over at Cas, he confirmed that he'd be able to come and help this woman in a minute.  
"Can you tell me where the other hostages are?" He whispered. There were very few hostages in this room: mainly dead or dying, they couldn't have been the entire contents of the bank when the criminals took control.  
"S-s . . ."  
"Shh, it's okay. Don't talk," Sam replied, once he had established that yes, there were more civilians, and yes, she knew where they were. He put his hand to her head and looked into her eyes.

It was fucking difficult to read her: she was panicking like crazy, and his adrenaline was working against him so that he was mentally straining to even hear whispers of the thoughts in her mind. Luckily, she was still considering his question, so it only took him about ten seconds to get the answer out of her. Just as well, as he heard footsteps approaching his hiding place.  
"The safe. Thank you, ma'am,"

She looked up at him in fear, even thought she was in tremendous pain. He wished he had time to explain that she was wrong about which side he was on.

Cas looked up. One hostage-taker was approaching the area where Sam was trying to read a hostage. He looked back at the woman with the dislocated shoulder. He expected her to stare at his with awe, or disgust, or even hatred. He was surprised when instead of doing so, she balked. She looked him in the eye for a second, before losing her nerve. She suddenly wrenched her own arm downwards, relocating the shoulder, and shot up, running for the doors.

_Gotcha_, Sam thought, as the woman bolted across the room. The shifter would know that going up against three mutants wasn't worth the risk: she was cutting her losses.

Aside from the one approaching him, Sam knew that the human bank robbers were all either smouldering on the floor after being burned by Dean, bleeding from gunshot wounds inflicted by himself or Cas, or hiding waiting for the three of them to come out into the open so that they could shoot them.

From his hiding place, Sam looked at Dean, and mouthed, _Stay here_. _Cover me. Hostages in safe. _  
Dean's shocked and indignant face was confirmation that he understood – they'd perfected lip reading a long while ago.

The very second he had a clean shot on the man approaching him, he unloaded his gun into the man's knee, sending him screaming to the floor. In the resulting confusion and panic, the other criminals began to panic, firing wildly: in the midst of this, Sam shot up, running as fast as he could after the shifter.  
"Sam!" Dean cried, though he knew his warning was futile: his brother wasn't going to stop now. Gunfire followed Sam as he rushed stealthily across the large room, following the shifter. Dean did his best to ignite those who were aiming at his brother, but it was hard when he couldn't see them properly from his position.

_Fuck it_. He stood up, throwing his arms out towards the men and praying they weren't near anything flammable – or worse, _explosive_. In the ensuing firefight, Sam got away, leaving Dean and Cas to incapacitate the human criminals. It was over before it even began: when Dean started throwing fireballs, they fled as quickly as they could, though they didn't get far; some even dropped to their knees in surrender.

"Please – we'll cut you in, man-" One of them begged at Dean's feet. Dean rolled his eyes.  
"Yeah, yeah – whatever. Is it true? Are there hostages in the safe?" He demanded.  
"Y-yeah," Another of the cowardly thieves confirmed. "But wait, like – you can't want to save these people? They hate you! They hate you, and what you do, and what you _are-_"

He was promptly cut off by Cas touching his head. He fell to the ground, out cold.  
"See if there's anyone else in here that needs healing. I'm going after Sammy," Dean commanded, and Cas frowned, but nodded once.

As an afterthought, Dean paused before he left, addressing the criminals again: "-oh, and when he gets there, they'd better be alive. If not – well, we'll be back for you," He threatened, glaring at each of the remaining men in turn.  
Dean dashed off, trying to figure out which direction the shifter and his brother had gone in. If they'd gone down into the sewers, the way the three of them had arrived (it was the only foolishly unguarded area of the bank), he'd struggle to find them quickly.

At the same time, Sam chased the shifter into the basement: he thought that he had backed her into a corner. He took his gun from its holster, and cocked it, ready to shoot her when the moment arose. Silver bullets would be necessary for this one – shifters, with their own very radical branch of the mutant genome, had developed their own set of vulnerabilities different to those of most other mutants. Silver was one of them.

The basement contained the grating they'd arrived through to get into the bank in the first place: Sam spotted the shifter about to exit through it and yelled, "Freeze!"

The shifter did, indeed, freeze. It turned around. Slowly.  
"Well, looks like ya got me," She said, raising an eyebrow.  
"Yeah. Looks like I did," Sam replied, keeping a careful watch over her.  
"What kind of _mutant_ betrays another mutant like this?" She sneered, her emphasis on the word 'mutant' implying that she thought very little of him.  
"One like me," He replied simply.  
"And you are?" She asked, putting her hands on her hips. When he didn't answer, she sighed, "Come on. It's not like I'm getting out of here,"  
After a long pause for thought, Sam saw no flaws in her reasoning, and gave in: "They call us the Men of Letters,"

She actually laughed. "This ain't the comic books, kid. It's dumb to have a name like that – if you're a known group of mutants with a _name _and _matching _uniforms-"  
"We don't have matching-"  
"-people will think you're terrorists," She continued, ignoring his protest. "They'll pin this whole thing on you, y'know – the robbery, the death of civilians. Of the poor little bank teller," She pointed to herself and grinned maliciously.  
"We'll see," He grunted, keeping a steady aim on her. He didn't want to act until Dean arrived. Shifters were slippery, and he didn't want her to get away.  
" . . . Yeah. Guess we will . . . But as it happens, I _have _heard of you,"  
"That so?" Sam asked conversationally, not really caring about the answer – or, at least, _trying _not to care.  
"Oh, yeah. There's the fire one–" She tutted, shaking her head, "_Very _bad temper, I've heard," Sam smirked. She didn't know what she was talking about, "I heard he burnt down his house as a kid. Killed his own mother,"  
"That's not true," Sam corrected. He was trying to remain calm, but he couldn't let that one slide. Where was she getting this information from? The true parts, anyway?

"Oh, yes. Then the one who thinks he's – I don't know, he's a healer? Super religious, though. A man of God. Strange, though, that God would curse him to be a mutant in the first place. Guy's a bunch of contradictions," She carried on, adding the last part in a stage-whisper that made Sam sneer – he didn't like people mocking Cas as much as he didn't like people mocking Dean. They were both family to him.

"That's enough," Sam growled, trying to get her to stop. But she continued anyway, of course.  
"Then there's the freak," Sam's heart felt cold, as her words sounded like a gong, resonating with certain memories of his father of all people. _Freak_.  
"Yeah, even for a mutant, you're something, aren't you, Sammy Winchester?" She asked with a mocking expression.

Sam frowned – how had she known his name?

". . . A psychic, whose powers are somewhat _iffy _if I'm not mistaken. Visions here, some crappy telepathy there – then the accidental powers, the uncontrollable telekinesis. I've heard he can make you do things, just by telling you to,"  
"Shut up," He spat. His gun was shaking slightly in his grip.  
"Unstable, by all accounts – a hair's breadth from going completely _Rogue_,"  
"I am _not _like them!" He yelled at her, stepping closer in the midst of his fury.

And that moment was all it took.

From the back of her trousers, hidden under the back of her blouse, she whipped out a small gun, which she quickly fired into his face. He barely had a second to think and panic before it had happened.

"Sammy!" Echoed a voice somewhere in the distance, along with a grittier call of "Sam!"  
This was it. This was how he was going to die. There was complete silence after the deafening bang of the gun firing.

The first thing Sam noticed in the silence was that he was still alive. And that he had shut his eyes.

He opened his eyes, gazing forward, trying to figure out _exactly _how he'd survived. He saw the bullet literally centimetres from his face, and gulped. The look on the shifter's face was priceless.  
"Not so crappy after all, huh?" He asked her breathlessly, picking the bullet out of the air and holding it in dumb surprise. The shifter took that moment to make a dive for the grating hole, but was met with a silver bullet from Cas' gun to the shoulder, which caused it to yowl in pain. It already had an injury there.

"Come on, we'd better drop her off at the station . . ." Sam began, turning around to face Dean and Cas. They were both staring at him with fuming and surprised faces, respectively. He floundered for something to say for a moment.  
The best his brain could come up with was, "Uh . . . Ta-da?"

* * *

"Ta-da?!" Dean asked, dumping his bag of supplies he'd needed for the raid down on the table, the flame-retardant material making a rustling noise as it hit the mahogany surface. "Ta-_fucking_-da, Sam?"

Sam, who like the rest of the team had maintained an awkward silence throughout the journey home in the Impala, knew that his brother had wanted to wait til they got home to have this debate. Somewhere with sprinklers and fire extinguishers. And that place was their grandfather's bunker.

They'd come into possession of it after the fire at Sam's apartment in Stanford. It was lucky, really, the timing – but then again, with their grandfather being an expert on mutants and the supernatural, and knowing a time-travelling mutant, what else could they expect?

He'd just turned up out of the blue one day, approaching them to tell them the story of how he came to be there: he was part of a secret society that were researching theories of mutation, and possible links with the supernatural. Another member of the society, a time-traveller called Gabe, had informed him that his grandsons were mutants. Delighted, he decided to give them the keys to the society's bunker, in order to join them.

Figuring he'd just given them a place to live at best – and that he was an utter crackpot at worst – they went to the bunker once he'd gone back to his own time, expecting to find loads of 'Men of Letters' as the society was called. But when they found none, they decided to stay anyway. They had no home, except their car, having moved around a lot during their childhood so that their father could attend his precious anti-mutant rallies.

They never did find out why there were no Men of Letters left. However, with a vast, uninhabited and well-furnished bunker up for grabs, the brothers decided to use the place as a headquarters for their work against the vitriol that their father, and people like him, had spread for so long. Saving people, hunting Rogues – the family business. Well, it was now that their father was gone.

"I don't-" Sam began, already knowing it was kind of useless to try and put his point across right now.  
"Damn _right _you don't! You could've been killed, Sam!" Dean roared, placing his palms flat on the table.  
"But I wasn't!" Sam protested, rolling his eyes and raising his voice slightly to compete with his brother's. He gripped the back of a chair tightly from the other side of the table, staring at his brother and Cas, who was awkwardly staring at the floor, awaiting some unspoken permission to leave.

"You didn't know you were gonna survive though, huh? You looked damn surprised at your amazing little trick, just like the rest of us!" Dean countered. Sam noticed him remove his hands from the table, conscious of heating up and leaving black burn marks on it, just like every other time he got angry enough. There were enough blackened handprints on the thing already.  
"Well yeah, I was surprised! Strangely enough, I've never stopped a bullet at point blank range before, Dean!" Sam replied sarcastically, a sardonic smile gracing his features and infuriating his brother further. His fingers tightened their grip on the chair.  
"You've also never successfully used your telekinesis on a case before, either. What were you _thinking_?!" Dean asked, only half-wanting an answer.  
"I didn't mean to do it! I didn't see she had a gun, alright?" His younger brother tried to reason.  
"Which is why you should always wait for me! Don't even get me started on the fact that you ran away, leaving a total _shit-storm _for me and Cas to clean up alone,"

Cas shifted a bit at that, watching as Dean waved his arms angrily in his direction. He wished he'd had the foresight to leave earlier, when it would have been deemed socially acceptable.

"She would've gotten away, Dean! What was I supposed to do, let her?! She was a Rogue! You know, the same type of mutant that killed our whole family, that made us unable to tell anyone who we are, _what _we are, cause they'll think we're fucking _terrorists_?!"

"Sam," Cas interrupted suddenly, aware of how Dean was about to react to Sam dragging up their painful past, and not wishing to get a face full of fire tonight. He drew the attention of the two brothers easily, their heads turning towards him from their respective sides of the table that stood in the centre of the war room. ". . . What changed?"  
"What?" The Winchesters both snapped with the same tense expressions.

"You used your telekinesis. What facilitated that?" He tried to put it gently, but he knew it was pretty much a lost cause by now. Anything he said was going to cause tension when the brothers were in a mood like this with each other. Sure, by tomorrow they'd be receptive to his thoughts – but today, they were at loggerheads with each other, and the world. He should have left this until tomorrow.

"Well, uh . . ." Sam thought about it for a moment, ". . . I was gonna die?" He answered, voice laced with sarcasm once more.  
"Survival instinct. Go on," Cas replied, and Sam wasn't sure he'd understood that he was being gently mocked. He tried again, thinking more seriously this time:  
"Um, leading up to her getting the gun, she was – uh, she was saying some pretty horrible stuff. About you guys . . . About me," He finished quietly, clearing his throat. Cas had a sinking feeling he knew Dean would share when he heard his next words:  
"And you were angry?"  
". . . Yeah," Sam answered, the realisation of what Cas was getting at slowly dawning on him.

The room fell into a long silence. Cas and Dean shared a meaningful look that made Sam sick to look at.

"Sammy, you gotta get your powers under control," Dean muttered after a little while.  
"What? You think I'm a freak, too? Just like she did?" Sam asked quietly. Before Dean could deny it, he changed the subject with a shake of his head: "She knew things about us, Dean. Stuff we haven't told anyone outside this room. Our real names, how Mom died – kind of,"  
"That's aside from the point, Sam. You gotta practise more," Dean persevered.  
"I practise _too much_, Dean," Sam argued. "The more I use them, the . . . The more _powerful_ I feel. Like I'm capable of anything, and that . . . That's not a positive feeling. I know it isn't. But I can't help it, every single time I go to read someone's mind; every time I fall asleep and see the future, I just feel . . . Unstoppable. And it shouldn't feel good, but it does," He finished, finally finding the words he'd been struggling to say to Dean all these years about how alien, how _strange _his powers felt when he used them. Almost _sinister_.

". . . Sammy, just – please, don't go unstable on me. I don't know what I'd do if you – if you-"  
"Went Rogue?" Sam finished, his eyes blazing with hurt. "Jeez, Dean, I didn't know you had such a low opinion of me," He paused, looking down for a moment at his reflection in the mahogany.  
"I'm not stupid, Dean. I know what's best for me. I know what I'm doing," He asserted.  
". . . Do you?" Dean asked.

There was another long, hostile silence. Sam stared at Dean, his eyes dark. He shook his head, and turned away, storming off towards the staircase.

". . . I'll be in my room, in case you wanna check I haven't gone _Rogue_ in the middle of the night or something," He shot back bitterly.

When he was gone, Dean sighed.  
"I just – I don't know what to do, Cas. He needs to practise more, but the more powerful he gets the more unstable he is, and I just-" Dean's words trailed off, and he slumped down into one of the chairs stationed around the table. With a thought, he started a fire in the fireplace, and tried to relax. It was hard when he was so mad at Sammy, and at himself for not handling the situation as well as he could've. Cas stood next to him, staring into the fireplace looking pensive. Dean knew he was about to add in his two cents worth, but he didn't have the energy to stop him, and besides – perhaps Cas would have a better perspective on this whole mess.

"It was wrong of you to imply that he would join the very group you hunt every day. Rogue mutants are abominations, who have failed to appreciate the gift God has given them; they choose to commit sin with it," Cas pointed out, and Dean nodded. He strode up to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a drink, wishing he had some ice to cool it with. Maybe then he wouldn't feel so hot, too.

Cas continued as Dean sat back down, sipping his whiskey, "I do believe that your brother . . . He chooses to do good, with his gift. He chooses to channel this powerful feeling he gets into our cause; to use it for good,"  
"For now," Dean muttered into his glass.  
That caused Castiel to frown, looking down from where he stood at Dean's side. "You have never been a man of faith, Dean. But I always assumed you had more faith in your brother than this,"

Dean looked up, catching his friend's sympathetic but somehow still disappointed expression.  
"Yeah, me too," The older Winchester replied, not breaking eye contact.

Castiel bowed his head, sighing at his friend's predicament.  
"I will pray for your brother – I will also pray for you, Dean Winchester," He supplied, trying to be helpful.  
"Whatever you say, feathers,"  
"I would prefer if you refrained from calling me that," Cas huffed, pursing his lips.  
"Why not? Is it blasphemous?" Dean asked, his voice a little tongue-in-cheek.  
"It is rude to call an Angel of the Lord such names,"  
"What makes you so sure you're an angel, anyhow?" Dean asked, slightly suspicious but more than anything simply _interested_. From the get-go, Cas had always told them that he didn't think he was a mutant: not really. He sincerely believed himself to be an Angel. And while Dean wasn't one for believing in that kind of crap, he decided to leave Cas alone about it for the most part.

"Because I have Grace running through my body, as blood runs through your veins," Castiel asserted, turning and following up the stairs Sam had gone up before.  
"Blood," Dean laughed bitterly, "Y'know, after all these years, I could swear it's actually fire running through my veins by now,"  
"That's the whiskey talking, I believe. Good night, Dean," Cas replied, shaking his head with a small smile as he left the room.  
"Night, Cas,"

* * *

Dean was still there, dozing quietly in front of the embers of the fire, when Sam padded softly down the stairs on his way to the kitchen. He had been tossing and turning in bed for a few hours, but he couldn't stop worrying about the argument he'd had with Dean, and thinking that his brother was onto something. Needless to say, that wasn't conducive to sleep. Sam was a light sleeper anyway: he had been all throughout their childhood, what with all their father had told them about Rogue mutants sneaking into their room in the middle of the night and killing them in their sleep. The only time in his life he'd managed to sleep easy was when he was at Stanford . . . Jess would stroke his hair to calm him down; just the sound of her breathing, her heartbeat, and her warmth were enough to send him right off. It was simple things like that that he still missed, four years later.

Obviously, when she was taken from him, he'd reverted back to fitful sleep at night, woken up by the slightest of noises or barely-scary nightmares. The only time he truly slept well was when he was having a vision, and even then, it didn't feel like sleep. It was like being awake all the time.

He stopped when he reached the bottom step, seeing Dean's sleeping form slumped over in the chair, a whiskey glass hanging perilously from his slack hand. He shook his head, half in disapproval and half in amusement. Typical Dean. He's gonna make a great old man.

_If we make it to that kind of age_, he thought sullenly.

He felt bad about earlier, needless to say. He knew he'd been wrong to run off, leaving Dean to clean up his mess while he went off after the shifter alone. It was reckless, yeah, and he could've been killed if his survival instinct – or his anger, as Cas had helpfully pointed out – hadn't kicked in to save his ass at the last minute. But he had to catch her: he felt he owed it to the world to get rid of the Rogue mutant, seeing as he was coming so close to being one himself.

He shuddered, thinking of all the news reports he'd seen on them growing up as he walked to the kitchen for a glass of water. His father used to relish in turning up the volume, so he and Dean could hear all the awful things that tiny percentage of mutants had done. The kidnappers, the bank robbers, the sex offenders, the murderers, the _terrorists_. They gave mutants a bad name: ask any human out there what they thought of humans, and the likelihood they'd have a non-prejudiced opinion about them was slim to none. Dollars to donuts, they'd recoil in fear, disgust, or just pure hatred because the only mutants they'd ever heard about on the news were the Rogue ones.

Rogues: the ones who actively hated humans; who hurt everyone around them, and the ones they loved, simply because they couldn't control their powers. The ones with powers so unacceptable, so unstable, and so evil, that they were completely unable to be redeemed.

_Past the point of redemption. If my powers grow any more, that'll be me. I can't become completely unstable. I can't let them grow into something that will make me like _them_. I can't risk the chance of hurting Dean, or Cas. Dean was right. I need to get this under control._

He returned to the war room, having poured the water basically on autopilot. He thought about going straight for the stairs, but then decided to wake Dean up so he could go to bed. He wouldn't be happy in the morning if he slept like that all night: he'd have a sore neck, for one thing.

"Dude," Sam called, trying to be as loud as possible so as to wake Dean. He was a light sleeper, which was lucky, as Sam didn't want to have to touch him while he was asleep. Startling Dean during his sleep was not advisable without a fire extinguisher present.  
"Wh – oh, hey Sammy – I was just, uh – resting my eyes," Dean mumbled, stretching and looking curiously down at his glass, before setting it down on the table.  
"Whatever man. Listen . . . About earlier,"  
"Sam," Dean began, frowning.  
"No, it's just – you're right. I need to get my powers under control, and practise more. I'm sorry. I just . . . I'm gonna need your help. I don't wanna overdo it,"

Dean stared at him thoughtfully for a moment, before half-smiling as he stood up.  
"Of course, Sammy. I . . . Yeah. Sure," Dean replied, and Sam knew he'd just gotten his return apology. He smiled at Dean.

"C'mon, let's get you to-" Sam began, but stopped abruptly, freezing in position.  
Dean reacted immediately, stiffening and taking Sam by the shoulders. His brother had a far-away, dazed expression on. "Sam? What's wrong?"  
"It's Cas, he's-" Sam put his hands to his forehead, wincing, "Fuck, it's – _loud_," He bit out.  
"Let's go," Dean replied shortly, dragging Sam up the stairs at a run, his brother stumbling behind him as the pain subsided.

After running through the many upstairs corridors, they finally arrived at Cas' room. Dean banged on the door:  
"Cas, open up – it's Sam, he says you-" Looking at his brother's screwed up face, he sighed and simply tried the handle. Screw privacy. Sammy's head was about to explode, by the looks of it.

The door opened easily when Dean tried the handle: inside, Cas was kneeling in front of his bed, looking up. He appeared to be praying, his hands clasped together with a look of rapturous joy on his face.

"Cas, what are you – what's going on? What's that noise?" Sam asked, gesturing wildly around the room, and Dean figured it was something that only his brother and Cas could sense.  
"Sam, Dean – I can hear him," Cas whispered reverently, his eyes alight with happiness.  
"Hear what? I can't hear anything but static," Sam asked, rubbing his temple with one hand and supporting himself with a hand on the doorframe with the other.

"_His_ voice," Cas replied. Sam and Dean looked quizzically at each other for a moment, before looking back at Cas who clarified in a matter-of-fact way that left them speechless:  
"I can hear the voice of God,"


	2. Chapter 2

**_AN: _**_glad you're enjoying it so far, everyone who's favourited/followed, and my reviewer! I'm thinking of maybe having a flashback at the beginning of each chapter, just so you can see how this AU relates to the canon established in the show. This one is about Sam's decision to go to college. _

_DISCLAIMER: I don't hate John Winchester, and I know this isn't how he is on the show - but in this AU, he is very much anti-mutant, as you'll come to see. I mean, I'm not his biggest fan, but this isn't just a work of John-hate - in fact, I guess you could sympathise with him. _

_Cheers! _

* * *

_August 2001_

"All I'm saying is, I don't feel comfortable going to the rallies anymore," Sam explained, nudging the motel room door open with his shoulder, bundling bags full of John's protest signs onto the nearest available bed.  
"What's this really about? Is it about your college applications? Son, I've explained to you enough times-" John began to lecture.  
"What? You think someone's gonna attack me as soon as I leave your sight? Don't worry, I can look after myself well enough – _you _made sure of that," Sam muttered bitterly.

John dumped the Impala's keys down on the sideboard of his bed, fuming at Sam's words.  
"I'm supposed to apologise for teaching you how to defend yourself in case one of those _filthy _things comes into your house at night and attacks you? Sets your house on fire, and tries to kill you?"  
"Hell yeah you are! I didn't need to know those things at the age of eight, Dad!" Sam yelled back.  
"I'm not sure I like this new tone of yours, Sam," John growled, his eyes narrowing.

Sam's mouth turned up in the corner in utter disbelief. He shook his head, turning away. He simply couldn't believe that his father still treated him like this: like he was a child, who needed to be warned about _big, scary mutants _that would kill him in his sleep. It was a fucking joke. _If only he knew_.

Dean had made a bee-line for the bathroom, where he was now loitering, afraid to come out and disrupt what was obviously about to blow up into a full-scale argument. With the door closed, he listened to his father and brother hurl comments and jibes at one another. He closed his eyes, and steadied his breathing.

When he opened them again, he looked down at his hand. It was on fire.

Far from panicking like he had the first time this hand happened a year or two ago, he sighed, and stared at his fingers as flames curled around them, dancing in the soft breeze from the window. It was a hot night, but Dean didn't feel the heat. Being fireproof and invulnerable to virtually all extremes of temperatures was useful sometimes. Perhaps he could just stay in here forever – or maybe just until his father and brother were done with their-

"I just don't think they deserve all the hate you give them, _sir_,"

Uh-oh.

Dean quickly extinguished the flame, opening the door as quietly as possible and staring out at the car-crash that was about to take place.

"What did you just say to me?" John asked quietly. The volume of his speech somehow only served to make it even more threatening.  
"I said mutants aren't all bad, Dad. Very few of them go Rogue, and well – they make up like 10% of the population, you can't just write off a tenth of all people because of one thing!"  
"That _one thing_, Samuel, is the death of your mother! Or do you not care about that anymore?!"  
"Of course I care, Dad, but it was 18 years ago! . . . You need to move on. Look what it's doing to your life – to mine and Dean's lives! We can't be normal! We can't stay in one place! We can't be who we want to be!"

"And who is it you want to be, Sam? Some college student?" John sneered.  
"No," Sam replied, looking at his boots and steeling himself for his next words. Dean could see what was about to happen, but he couldn't stop it. He was frozen still.  
"I _want_ to be open and honest with you. I'm . . . I'm a mutant, Dad,"

For Dean, it had been plainly obvious that Sammy was a mutant since he was about five years old. Dean had listened as Sam asked him about events he shouldn't have known about – _what's mustard like, Dean? Is it nice? It's just I saw you had some in your sandwich today at school, didn't you? _– and watched as he'd frowned at news reports on the TV with a thousand-yard stare, clearly fraught with deja-vu from his precognitive dreams. Dean had known Sammy was a mutant before Sammy knew it himself.

So when Sammy had told him at age ten that he was the thing that their father most hated and feared in this world, Dean wasn't surprised. He was relieved, and overjoyed that he could talk openly with Sam about any issues he had with his powers. Dean wasn't scared of his brother – even in light of how their mother died – because he was just _Sammy_. And there was nothing scary about that, no matter what their father said.

Dean was a late-bloomer in terms of his powers (not as late as some people, but later than Sammy, who was virtually a child prodigy), but when they came, they were big and combative and _dangerous_. But Sammy supported him all the same. They were never afraid of each other. Not once.

They both knew, however, that they needed to keep their powers a secret from their father; that he would definitely not be as tolerant as the brothers were to each other.

"Don't," John Winchester breathed, ". . . Don't be stupid, Sam,"  
"Think of a number," Sam said in a low, stony voice, "Between one and a billion," He wasn't sure if he'd be able to read his father's mind accurately right now – they were both so overwrought with anger and emotion – but it got the message across.

That was when John pulled the gun on him.

"Dad, no!" Dean admonished sternly, stepping in front of his brother, much to John's shock.  
"Dean, move,"  
"No. He's your son. He's not like _them_," Dean tried to persuade him.  
"But he's one of them, Dean! Can't you see! He's a fucking freak! He – he's in our minds! He'll – he'll-"  
"He'll be leaving for college right about now," Sam interrupted, grabbing his things hastily, and shoving them into his duffel bag with abandon. He collected his stuff from around the room – it didn't take long: a life on the road attending his father's rallies and protests didn't accommodate a large wardrobe, or many possessions.  
"Yeah, you'd better leave, before Dean changes his mind!" John spat, not looking his eldest in the eye, and burning holes in his youngest, who head straight for the door. "You're lucky you got that full ride. You won't see a cent from me again – in fact, lose my number! No son of mine – no son of _mine _is a mutant!" He finished, screaming towards the end. Sam didn't turn around, just look at Dean with a wordless question:

Coming?

Dean bit his lip, and looked at his father. _I can't leave_, he thought. _What if he finds you? I have to make sure he doesn't come after you. At least, for a little while. _

Sam looked disappointed, but nodded slightly.  
"Bye, Dad. Thanks for your support," He said icily as he opened the door, not looking back as he went.  
"You don't belong here, anyway . . . I'm not your Dad, _freak_,"

Sam winced at his father's words, but knew they were the product of a lifetime of fear and loathing: not at who he was, but _what _he was. The thing about himself that he couldn't help. It was his biology, his brain . . . It was in his blood.

"Bye, Dean," He murmured to his brother, who turned to face him as he walked out of the door, slamming it behind him. Dean was left in the uncomfortable silence, with the awful tension that had built up during the argument between his two beloved family members lingering in the air.

". . . No son of mine," John mumbled to himself, swiping a bottle of liquor from the desk, as Dean continued to stare at the door, where Sammy had been.

He couldn't help but feel rejected, both by his brother and by his father, though neither intended to make him feel like this – well, not yet, in John's case. But, well – in his own words, _no son of mine_. Soon he'd learn that that applied to both his sons, and disown Dean, too.

It didn't matter that Dean would go on to have hundreds of lives and catch even more Rogue mutants, while Sam got his law degree and went on to do the same thing after the death of his fiancée. They were bastards. Both of them.

* * *

_Present Day_

Dean strode slowly around, listening to the ringing emanating from his phone. He rubbed his eyes, and checked the time: just before seven a.m. Wow.

He waited a little longer, before his call was answered.  
A bleary voice sounded down the line: "You'd better be on fire or something- oh, it's _you_,"  
"Cute," Dean sniped, not in the mood for banter right now.  
"Seriously, dude. This better be important,"

In the background, Dean heard a woman's voice: '_Who's calling you at this time_?!'  
"Charlie, I – uh, sorry to drag you away from your, uh-" Dean floundered.  
"Whatever," She interrupted, "Apologise later. A lot. Anyway, what's so urgent you had to call at the crack of seven in the morning?"  
"It's Cas. We need you to come down here, and bring as much of your tech with you as you can carry – well, as much as you can fit in a car, anyway,"  
"Very funny," Charlie grumbled, recognising the jibe at her height. "Can't it wait til later? It's just that I'm a bit – busy, right now. You know – hot elf action. Fraternising with the enemy, yadda yadda-"  
"I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. You know I wouldn't cockblock you on purpose," He added.

He heard her sigh, and there was some rustling for a second. "Let me just – grab a shirt . . ."  
"Oh," Dean said quietly with a rare blush, and waited a minute. There was the sound of movement, then the unmistakable sound of a coffee machine working its magic.  
"Right. Listening," She yawned, returning to the line.  
"Well, last night – about, well, three hours ago now – Sam thought he heard some kinda disturbance – like, static or something. But he couldn't make out what it was – it's unusual even for him,"  
"Wait, I thought you said this was about Cas?" She asked, confused.  
"It is," Dean said impatiently, "Sammy knew the disturbance had to do with Cas, so we went to see him in his room. Only thing is, when we got there, son of a bitch thinks he's hearing the voice of God,"  
"Like, capital G?" Charlie asked incredulously.  
"You got it," Dean confirmed.

He heard the sound of a spoon clinking against a mug, and a small slurping noise. Then a contended sigh.

"Dude thinks he's an angel, Dean. He could well be one. This isn't anything new for him, right?" Charlie reasoned, after mulling it over for a minute.  
"No, Charlie – this is . . . It's different. Yeah, he prays. It's just that he never normally gets a _reply_," Dean explained.  
"Til now," Charlie finished. There was a pause as she drank some more coffee. "And you want me to try and get a frequency on this 'voice'? The disturbance that Sam senses, but only Cas can understand – right?"  
"Got it in one," Dean responded, in a half happy, half exhausted tone.  
"Hmm," Charlie replied, and he could hear the frown in her voice. "I'll talk to my computer. See if I can get him to cooperate," Dean knew when she said 'talk', she didn't mean figuratively.  
"You're awesome. Can we expect you soon?"  
"Uh . . ." There was a pause, and some muffled voices in the background, before she answered: ". . . Give me a few extra hours?"

Dean chuckled despite himself.  
"Did I mention you're awesome?"  
"You might've, yeah," She replied, and Dean could hear the smile in her voice.  
"Alright. I gotta go. Be safe,"  
"Yes sir," She laughed. The call ended.

Dean pocketed his phone and smiled. He enjoyed having Charlie around. The group had met her when they were investigating a company that was a front for a mutant exploitation ring: kidnapping mutants with useful powers and selling them to the highest bidder; illegally bringing foreign mutants to the USA to work in terrible conditions and/or illegal jobs. Charlie had been in tech support, fixing computers and testing the software systems.

When Sam, Dean and Castiel confronted her meaning to convince her to help them, they found her completely unaware of what the company actually did: once she knew the truth, she was eager to help, because in her words, '_What kind of douchebag just stands by while that's happening?_'

Luckily the company didn't know she was a mutant – a skilled 'technopath', as she called it. She talked to machines: a very useful skill when it came to hacking the company and exposing them as a criminal enterprise, once they'd convinced her to join them.

In Dean's opinion, she was a bona-fide genius. And not just because of her skills with computers, cars and various other machines and gadgets – the girl had _serious _skills with the chicks.

In short, they were good friends. So, in amongst all the shit that was happening right now, there was at least one good thing going on.

But now that call was over, it was back to confronting the shit that had gone on overnight: Cas was one hundred percent convinced he'd heard the voice of God. He'd become almost hysterical with utter glee, and wouldn't listen to reason. He just sat there beaming like a goddamned Cheshire cat. It was fucking _creepy_. Cas' face wasn't like that. It was blank, and indifferent, but thoughtful – it was just _Cas's face_. And this wasn't. It was all wrong.

Then there was Sammy. Dean made his way back to the war room from his bedroom – which he hadn't had the opportunity to use for actually _sleeping _in a few days now, what with the case yesterday and all of the shit that was currently going on, _and_ sleeping in a chair, resulting in a _killer _crick in his neck – thinking of how pale and sickly his brother had looked during that initial burst of static disturbance. His balance had been thrown off with the sheer volume of it, invading his head and '_trying to claw its way out from the inside_', in his brother's words. Dean suspected that if Sam had more control over it powers, he'd have been able to turn the volume of the static down easily. But he just couldn't tell for sure. His brother's powers were getting . . . _Scary _these days.

When he arrived, he could see Cas beaming from the top of the stairs. It was downright off-putting. As he progressed, he saw Sam hunched over the table top, scribbling in that damn journal of his. Damn graduate.

"Hey," Dean greeted. Sam looked up when he heard Dean approaching, and his brother noticed that he was still slightly pale, with dark rings under his eyes – but he suspected that was more from lack of sleep than disturbance.  
"You're right. I can't hear it anymore. I tuned it out," Sam stated matter-of-factly, replying to his thoughts rather than his words.  
"Oh . . . Good to know," Dean replied, caught slightly off guard by his brother reading his mind. He forgot that when both Sam and his subject were calm, it was much, _much _easier for him to use his powers. And use them he did – like Dean said, he needed to practise, under his brother's supervision. He used to do it all the time when they were younger, when their Dad wasn't listening in.

So why, now, was Dean feeling slightly uncomfortable with it?

"Did you call her?" Sam asked.  
"Yeah, she'll be round in a few hours when she's done _fraternising_,"  
"Oh," Sam replied simply, looking Dean in the eye for a second, and then screwing up his face. "_Dude_. Quit it," He protested with a frown.  
"Oh I'm sorry, _thought police_. Get your mind outta my mind,"  
"Get your mind outta the gutter!" Sam countered indignantly.  
"Whatever. Go have a shower. And don't waste all the hot water on conditioning your hair, _Samantha_," Dean snarked, though they hardly ever ran out of hot water in the bunker. He silently thanked his grandfather for giving them the keys to this place, so they didn't have to motel-hop way into their eighties.

If they lived that long.

Sam flipped him off as he left for the showers.

"Charlie believes I may actually be an Angel of the Lord," Cas remarked suddenly.  
"Uh . . . Yeah. Yeah, she did say you could be one, for all we know," Dean recounted with a frown.  
"I don't see why it's so hard for you to believe if _she_ does," Cas clarified his meaning.  
"What, cause she's such a sinner? Jeez, Cas-"  
"You misunderstand. God is merciful, not petty – and he is utterly indifferent to sexual orientation, Dean," Cas interrupted. "What I meant is that you and her are quite similar in personality, interests and experience. You have both experienced abandonment and the death of a parent. You are both mutants, and you have both known me for a fair while. Why, when all of these variables are closely matched, would she be able to believe, and you be completely unable?"

Dean sighed, sitting down next to Castiel. He opened and shut his mouth a few times, each time intending give an answer to Cas' question – but each time falling short before he managed to find one that covered it. Cas' expectant face, too, was putting him off.

"I don't know, Cas. Must be a mutant thing. You wouldn't understand," He dismissed.

Cas smiled. That was as close as Dean would get to outright saying, '_I believe you, Cas. You're an angel. You're not a mutant, like me or Sammy, or Charlie'_.

It wasn't enough, but it would do for now.

"I'm gonna grab a few hours of sleep before tech support arrives," Dean asserted, making to stand up and walk away when he realised he had a brief window of time in which to relax before he needed to be on full worrying-about-Sammy-and-Cas mode.

"Dean," Cas grabbed his friend's arm gently, yet firmly. Dean looked down as his friend's fingers tightened around his forearm, "I heard Him. You'll see, one day soon. You just need to believe," He assured him emphatically, looking so deep into Dean's eyes that he felt he could see fire behind them, he noted with mild interest.

He reached up, and put a hand to Dean's neck. In the blink of an eye, the crick in his friend's neck was gone.

Dean just forced a tight smile and nodded his thanks, before walking away, not wanting to argue with or contradict Cas when his friend had just helped him. Besides, it was like arguing with a brick wall. He thought it was probably best to leave Cas alone to be happy anyway. He wouldn't deprive him of this, when it was making him feel good – at least, _for now_.

But as he walked away, he couldn't shake his thoughts about the whole matter of faith. How could he believe in a God, a heavenly Father, when he couldn't even say where the Hell his own father was? Whether or not he was even alive anymore?

He didn't know about Cas or Charlie, or even Sammy – but personally, he'd had enough of deadbeat Dads for his whole life.

* * *

_Let me know what you think, if you'd be so kind! Please note, you can also read this story on my Tumblr (thatwasbeautiful-clarence) if ff-net isn't working for you :)_


	3. Chapter 3

**_AN:_**_ hello again! I hope you're enjoying this - thanks for all your follows/favourites, and to my reviewer :) _

_Just to let you know, I'll be away from Friday until Wednesday, so there will be no posts during that time period - but hopefully I'll be able to post another chapter before then! Thanks a bunch :)_

* * *

_Palo Alto, California, 2008_

Watching Jess see off the last of their friends from their apartment, Sam smiled to himself. It had been a pretty great day: graduating law school, followed by this party, including seeing Dean again for the first time in many, _many _years.

Sure, they'd talked on the phone occasionally - but it was too dangerous for Dean to communicate with him when he was under their father's thumb. But then recently, as if by magic, Dad had let Dean go off on his own, to pursue a career as a mechanic. Of course, Dean had chosen Palo Alto as his desired place to live, so he could see Sam whenever he wanted without getting yelled at – or even disowned – by his Dad.

Dean was staying in the spare room – previously Sam's, before he'd moved right on in with Jess in her room – while he looked for a job and somewhere to stay permanently. Things were looking up.

In fact, scratch that: things were looking _perfect_. Graduating with honours, with both his brother and his fiancée at his side, could be topped by nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Sam continued to watch Jess as she shut the door, turning around and leaning up against it once it was shut. She smiled at him – that same smile she'd given him when they first met.

Sam had been lonely when he met Jess. Unsure about how to get close to people, he was just standing alone at the bar of some dive on campus. He wondered if it was obvious that he was a freak, just from how he spoke. Or how he stood. Or how he _breathed_.

Then, this blonde bumped into him, and he split his drink down his top.  
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" She cried, embarrassed. "–that's-"  
"No, really, it's fine-" Sam stammered.  
"No, it's not-" She fussed, calling for the barman – a friend of hers – to get her a towel.  
"Uh . . . Thanks," He responded, with a half-smile and a nervous blush.  
"No problem," She replied with a smile. ". . . You don't need to stand alone, y'know," She added quietly.  
"What – what do you mean? Why?" He jabbered, slightly confused.  
"I mean people like _you_-" She replied matter-of-factly, dabbing at his shirt while he watched her, dumbstruck.  
"-listen, I don't know what you're trying to say-" He interrupted in a low voice, with sinking feeling in his stomach. He'd _already _blown it.  
"-people like _me_," She finished, looking up at him and smiling, before dumping the towel on the bar. "We don't have to be alone. Not if we don't want to be,"

He stared at her in open-mouthed shock, before gathering himself, and leaning in close, casting a look around before he whispered: "How did you . . .?"  
"I sense 'em. People like you. I understand them. Hell, I _am _a person like you. It's called . . . Superior empathy, or something like that in that book those scientists made up," She explained, fiddling with her hair but still maintaining eye contact. Sam gulped.  
"Wyndam's Index of Mutant Ability. Right," He provided, still a little breathless from being discovered so quickly, and by such an attractive woman.

"I'm Jess, by the way,"  
"I know," Sam replied, having read her mind the moment she'd bumped into him.  
"I know you know," She teased back. "Come on, then – fancy a drink . . .?"  
"Sam," He told her, and she shook his hand, much to their mutual amusement.  
"Sam," She repeated, "Come on. Let's get some beers – and I'll try not to spill one on you this time," She joked, with a wink.

Something told Sam, now, that spilling the drink had been no accident at all. It just made him smile more, as he emerged from the memory to her wrapping one hand around his back, threading the other hand through his hair, and kissing him. This was it. This was the best day of his life.

Within a few hours, it was all over.

Jess had been going to shower. She'd left Sam in bed, slightly woozy from the booze he'd drank earlier at the graduation party, before going to the kitchen to get something or other – a dry towel, a hairbrush . . . It hardly mattered anymore.

It had only taken a few minutes for the fire to start. Sam was awoken from his dozing by the smell of burning, and by the sound of shrill laughter coming from the kitchen. He got up immediately, though he was still a little foggy, and went to his bedroom door. From there, he could see the bathroom door, open; the slender hand of his fiancée, slack and pale on the floor, disappearing off to her body behind the doorframe in a small pool of blood. From there he could see the fire, and the ones who had started it.

There were five of them. Five rogue mutants. Three women, and two men. Their eyes burned yellow in the flames, but the smoke didn't quite obscure the fact that his friend Brady – Brady, a friend of Jess', who'd attended their party earlier that evening, who'd been their friend – was the one holding the lighter.

Sam noticed him grin maniacally, holding up a bottle of liquor with a soaked dishcloth stuffed in the top, while his friends ran away out of the apartment, their mocking laughter echoing through the hallway. Sam barely had a second of wide-eyed shock to contemplate what was about to happen before Brady threw the thing into the bathroom, causing an explosion which was sure to kill Jess – if she wasn't dead already – and Sam too.

He screwed his eyes shut and cowered away, covering his eyes and screaming as the noise hit him like a wall. The unbearable heat got to him, and he braced for the pain – but there was none.

He cracked an eyelid open, and saw Dean standing over him; felt his arms folded protectively around him. His fire-proof back bore the brunt of the explosion. He was grimacing at the force of it, but other than that, experienced no pain.  
"We've gotta go!" Dean yelled at him over the roar of the flames, breathing in the smoke as though it were clear air, and feeling no discomfort.  
"But Jess – they – _Jess!_" Sam screamed, gulping down the smoke in the midst of the crackling and spitting sound of his life going up in flames.  
"She's gone, Sammy!" Dean tried to tell him, casting a worried glance at the ceiling as it began to blacken. They had seconds, at most.  
"No! _No!_" Sam cried, denial setting in. His eyes were watering both from the emotional strain and the smoke, and he was coughing strenuously.

Dean didn't try and argue this time. As Sam grew weaker, it was easier to drag him out of the apartment despite his protests, and to get him down the stairs, hitting the fire alarm on the way.

Once they were outside, Sam crumpled onto the grass, falling to his knees in front of the blazing apartment building. His eyes shone with tears unshead, and he coughed repeatedly until he didn't know if it was from the smoke inhalation, or the feeling that he was about to be sick from the complete and utter concentrated, unadulterated grief he was experiencing.

Looking up, he thought he saw her in a window, staring down at him and judging him, burning up with her stomach covered in blood. He slumped forward, his palms clinging to the grass, holding on for dear life while he forgot which way was up, and how to regain any sort of composure at all.

Jess was dead. She was gone. Sam would never see her again. She would never be there again to go on a bike ride with, or to play stupid video games with, or to take out to dinner, or to comfort him when he had a prophetic nightmare, or to simply hold him and understand him, as he held and understood her. Their symbiosis was ruined forever, as one half of a whole was snatched away.

Gone.

Dean cast his gaze to his brother, sobbing silently on the floor. His shoulders shook and his sooty knees were pressed into the mud, staining them even darker – just like this fire which, like the one when he was a baby, had made a permanent burn on his life.

Turning away sadly, Dean turned towards the fire, and summoned the last of his strength and concentration. He held his hands out towards the fire, and shut his eyes, thinking of how the last time he saved Sam from a fire at the age of four, he could do nothing about it. Well he was damn well doing something now.

Calm. He had to remain calm, even if his brother was fucking _breaking _beside him. Even if his brother had lost the person who he'd relied on like no other over most of the last decade. Even if his brother was going to have to come to terms with the fact that Dean was the only one left for him, and that even Dean wasn't sure he could help him half as well as Jess had.

Even if he wasn't sure they were even brothers anymore.

Though it seemed impossible, his calm seeped into the darkness of the night. It spread out, and with a massive effort, Dean was able to make it dampen the fire; it died down and down, until eventually, it was put out after a few minutes of deep, difficult concentration.

Dean sighed when he was done, collapsing down on the floor next to his little brother, whose face was still covered by his hands, and facing the ground. He still shook as his body was wracked with sobs, but they were silent, and becoming less frequent. Dean was sure he could hear Sam's heart breaking, if he listened hard enough.

As it was, Dean was listening. He heard sirens in the background, and doors opening up and down the street.

But he was stunned when he heard a simple, ". . . No . . ." Whispered from the dark.

He turned to the source of the familiar voice with dread, praying that he was wrong about who is was, who had seen him use his powers to put the fire out-

Dad. It was their Dad. Sammy had invited him to his graduation, as an olive-branch to re-open communications with him. And he'd come, but not to the party. Just to silently check that Sam was okay, and doing well, even if he didn't really give a damn or think that Sam was his son anymore.

And this was what he found. His second son, and mutant, too. All these years, a liar.

He backed away, shaking his head.  
"Dad – wait-"

Sam's head snapped up at that, his tear-streaked ashen face hopeful yet still full of sorrow. His sadness only increased when John sneered at them, and walked away, without a simple 'goodbye'. The brothers watched as their father disappeared into the crowds of people gathering round, including the ambulances and fire trucks, who were all chatting about the miracle of the fire simply _going out _before anyone could get hurt.

They were wrong. There were two casualties that night: Jessica Moore, and the potential for normal lives for both Winchester brothers.

"Just you and me now, buddy," Dean murmured, looking down at his brother, whose bottom lip quivered. "We'll get through this, you'll see,"

Sam just buried his head into Dean's chest, clinging onto him, through desperation rather than the need for actual comfort. That would come later.

And Dean clung back, because their thoughts at that moment were perfectly aligned:  
_Please don't leave me.  
Not you too. _

_You're all I have left._

* * *

_Present Day_

"So . . . How do you know this will work?" Dean asked sceptically, eyeing the equipment Charlie had laid out on the table as he and Sam stood over it. They'd brushed aside the books and papers strewn across the desk in the library, and were now using it for Charlie to work in.  
"Oh, no reason – just been talking to computers since I was twelve," Charlie replied, slightly distracted, as she was also typing at the same time.  
"When is she ever wrong, Dean?" Sam pointed out, and his older brother rolled his eyes, but nodded in assent.

"The voice is a specific signal – we know that cause Sam couldn't hear it, so it's not a blanket message to all, uh – psychics. Only _some_ people can hear it," Charlie reasoned. Sam nodded in agreement: he'd thought at much himself.  
"But Sam _could _sense that it was there. Which begs the question . . . How do they differentiate?" Charlie asked, grinning at the brothers. Dean thought she was probably enjoying solving this new mystery. It was a challenge for her, besides her usual hacking of major Republican-funded corporations to steal their money and donate it to charity.  
"There is no 'they'. It is the voice of my Heavenly father," Castiel corrected calmly.

Both Winchesters folded their arms in unison at their friend's claim. Charlie hid her amused look – she always found it funny when the brothers mirrored each other so exactly.  
"Any-hoo, I got to thinking, maybe they used genetic markers. They – um, _He _chose you specifically, Castiel – don't know why. Don't know how, either – maybe _someone _used a mutant to find you," Cas sighed loudly, obviously believing it wasn't a mutant, but God and God alone; he wasn't bothering to correct her more than once, though. "But the point is, this is a signal. A wave, with a frequency. If I can isolate the frequency, I can convince my computer to locate it, and we can go and check it out. Sound good?"

"Whatever you just said will probably work though, right?" Dean replied.  
With a huff, Sam put his hand on Dean's shoulder and nodded. Dean seemed content with that.  
"We'll, uh, just be going – don't wanna interfere-" Sam excused them.  
"No, please stay. I want the full wiki on what you've been up to," Charlie requested with a smile.  
". . . Sure," Sam replied with a cautious glance at Dean, whose face looked slightly stormy, "Just – get that up and running first," He pointed at some fancy headgear Charlie had brought with her.

"Oh, right - okay, Cas – just gotta stick this on your noodle. Got this off a friend of mine. It'll record any incoming signals to your brain, if I can tune it just right to you," She explained, pressing some buttons on the headgear, her tongue sticking slightly out of the side of her mouth as she worked.  
"When you say 'friend' . . ." Dean asked. Charlie just shrugged as a means of answering him, but couldn't help the cheeky grin that pulled at her lips.

After a few moments, the gear was ready. Cas obediently allowed it to be placed on his head, though he frowned and looked a little uncomfortable.  
"We're not supposed to test our Father. He said that we should come to him when the time was right, _not _when we use some illicit materials to locate-"  
"Hey! This material isn't illicit. I won it fair and square in a game of, uh . . . poker," Charlie interrupted.

Sam blushed. She looked over at him.  
"Outta my mind, Winchester!" She told him off jokingly.  
"Sorry. Lost focus. Kinda hard for me to _not _poke around in people's brains sometimes," He confessed, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.  
"Whatever, Sammy," Dean replied, elbowing his little brother in the ribs.

"_Anyway_," Charlie cut in, turning to her computer, "Just gotta set the trace going, and . . ." She hit the enter key, looking triumphant, "Bingo. That should get us a location,"  
"_If _it works," Dean grumbled.  
Charlie rolled her eyes, and quipped: "Oh, go roast a marshmallow. I never doubt _your _powers,"  
"That's cause mine could do you _serious _damage!"  
"Oh, and mine couldn't? I wonder how long you'd last if I disabled your phone, your laptop, your shower, your fridge, your _car-_"  
"Whoa, whoa! No need to get nasty!" Dean cried, as Sam laughed.

He retreated to the kitchen to make some dinner: Dean was the only real cook around here, bar sandwiches and ready-meals. And he sure did make good burgers, by everyone's admission. Something to do with flame-grilling them to perfection.

Sam sighed, and sat down at the table.  
"Uh-oh. That sounded ominous," Charlie commented.  
"Sam has been experiencing a little difficulty with his powers lately," Cas put in helpfully. Sam glared at him.  
"It's nothing. Honestly," He insisted, not taking his annoyed gaze off of Cas.  
"Mmm-hmm," Charlie eyed him with scepticism.  
". . . I keep developing new ones. Ones that don't work that well. And then there's the old ones, which are getting worse, and harder to control, and-" He sighed, cutting himself off unhappily.  
"Dude," She said hesitantly after a slight pause, "Are you – are you - y'know-?"  
"No. I'm not unstable," Sam replied stonily, picking up a nearby book – a first edition of Wyndam's Index of Mutant Ability, circa 1950. This was classified information back then, when the existence of mutants was a secret; when they were kidnapped in the night by the government, and their abilities tested and added to this book. Now, there was a 63rd edition, available in all good book shops. But, unlike this one, they weren't outdated. Or leather-bound.

He didn't need to look at the book. He just wanted a distraction. He wanted to keep busy.

"Does Dean . . .?"  
"Yeah. He knows. He says he'll help me through these . . . _Extra _powers, and learning to control all that energy and stuff, but . . . What if he can't? What if I'm beyond help?" He asked, not looking at her, and keeping his tone matter-of-fact despite feeling hopeless about the whole situation.  
"No one's beyond help, Sam," Cas commented, his eyes slightly unfocussed. Sam guessed it was an effect of his thought-waves being monitored that made him act a little different.

"Shh! No talking. I won't get a good reading," Charlie shushed Cas, and Sam half-smiled, cheered up slightly by the display. Cas simply looking into his lap, folding his hands together and looking for all the world like a kicked puppy.

"Mm," Sam hummed, pouring over the book some more. It was interesting, just to see the differences in in when compared to the 2013 edition.  
"Hang on," Charlie narrowed her eyes, "'Mm'? What's _that_ about?" She wondered, confused.

His eyes flicked up to meet hers, before quickly flicking back down again, unable to meet her stare.  
"Wait a minute. It's not that you think he _can't _help you . . . You don't think he _should_," She deduced. He huffed, and flipped erratically through the pages of the tome. Nowadays, the book was much more petite, with much smaller writing and more information per square inch than you could shake a stick at. But this old edition had larger writing. It even had hand-written sections, where Men of Letters of the past had annotated it.

"It's not that simple,"  
"But that's what you feel, isn't it?" She asked, and this time he couldn't avoid eye contact with her. They'd never really spoken like this before. He'd always thought she was just _Dean's _friend. It was just that, usually, even _other mutants_ usually steered clear of him. If they knew about him, what he could do, and his level of control, they usually felt justified on ignoring and shunning him.

But . . . Not Charlie, apparently.

"Just explain. You'll feel better," She wheedled. He sighed, and acquiesced:  
"He's never needed my help with _his _powers. Like, _ever_. He's just knuckled down. This whole thing is my fault - why do I have to be such a burden? I don't even deserve his help," He muttered in annoyance and shame, looking down at the book again.  
"Dude, are you joking?" She asked incredulously, "The guy dotes on you. He'd do anything for you – including this. He doesn't find you a burden. Surely you must know that?"

Sam simply shook his head.

"I haven't even known you all that long, but in the last few years, when I've seen you two together . . . It's clear he loves helping you, and having you around, and teasing you, and embarrassing you just like big brothers do. Cas, too. He likes you enough to help you through this, right?" She asked, looking at Castiel, who nodded vaguely. "See?" She asked, triumphantly. "And the question of whether or not you deserve his help – well only a total idiot could think you don't. I know a lot of bad things have happened to you two, and you've supported each other through it. Did you deserve each other's help then?"

Sam nodded, understanding what she was getting at. He wondered what had happened in her life that had lead to this sort of wisdom just pouring readily from her mouth - whatever it was, he was selfishly glad that it meant she could talk to him like this, and make him feel a little better about this whole thing.

"Then you deserve it now," She continued. "Oh, and don't try and compare yourself to Dean, in terms of powers – I mean, he's got an elemental power with a high degree of control, so he's got it easy, while _you-_"  
"Wait," Sam interrupted, his brow furrowing, and his mouth slightly open, as if a thought had just struck him. He quickly rifled through the Index, dust flying everywhere as he went. Charlie waved it out of her face, with an indignant cry of:  
"What the frack are you doing?!"  
"I've – had an idea," He explained.  
"About what?" She queried, coughing slightly as the dust settled. Cas looked on curiously, his eyebrows raising as he saw what page Sam was on.  
"My powers," He explained, an expression of wonder on his face. "Look – the classification pages. Like you just said, they have new categories nowadays – like elemental, psychic, electronic, healers – but in 1950, they only had-"  
"Three," She supplied, remembering her science lessons from high school with a shudder.  
"Wrong," He dismissed, looking up at her with a sincere expression.  
"What?" She frowned, pulling the book over to her. He relinquished it, and elaborated:

"In addition to 'offensive', 'defensive' and 'neutral', they added a fourth in the late 1950s. See – it's written in pen," He pointed. It was, indeed, written in the margin of the yellowed page, in blue ink turned green over the decades.  
"They didn't include it in the next edition, because they rejected the validity of the category," Sam continued, sounding more introspective as they went. "They thought there was a type of mutant – a potentially really dangerous type – whose powers would just grow, and grow, and grow, until the government would have to neutralise them just to assure the safety of the human race, in case they went Rogue – so they came up with the category-"  
"Exponential," She read aloud. She looked up, and at Sam, who was wearing a grimace and still staring down at the ink.  
". . . Right," He confirmed, his face pensive and gloomy.

She opened her mouth, and took a breath to try and assure him that this stuff was just science-fiction: there were no such things as mutants with exponentially growing powers. It just wasn't possible. It was only a theory that had never been, and was never going to be, proved. But she was interrupted by Castiel gasping, and the computer beeping wildly. Sam, took, gasped, and pressed his temples until his fingers were white with the pressure of it.

"I think – he's – talking to Cas – again," Sam gritted out, trying to calm down and regain full control. The static - a high-pitched, squealing tone - had returned.  
"Oh, blerg," Charlie cursed, typing a mile a minute. However, only a second later, her face brightened.  
"We did it!" She exclaimed, stroking the side of her laptop. Sam swore he heard it chirrup appreciatively at the word 'we'. She turned to Sam, whose scrunched-up yet gradually relaxing face waited for her to elaborate: "I know where it's coming from!"

"Sam," Cas murmured, grabbing the other man's hand from across the table before he could get up and look at the computer. Sam fixed him with a confused glare, wondering what had triggered Cas' outburst. Cas was looking down at the table, frowning.  
"What is it?"He asked with a concerned expression.  
"He . . . He told me that the location we have obtained is where he wants me to go. He says he has a job for me. He says that together, all the ones he has summoned – everyone like me – will help save the world,"  
"Save the world? . . . From what?" Sam asked in surprise and suspicion.  
"Yes – He did not say, but I must have faith," Cas explained, and Sam frowned, wondering if it was wise for Cas to put so much stock into whatever he was hearing, and _whoever _he was hearing it from. That voice must really be something, to convince him that it was his beloved, revered God.

"And . . . And He told me to bring Dean with me," Cas added, fidgeting nervously but not letting go of Sam.  
"Right," Sam accepted warily, wondering where this information was heading.  
"But. . ." Cas looked up, and into Sam's eyes, tightening his grip on Sam's forearm.  
"What is it?" Charlie asked with a raised eyebrow, distracted from her computer for a moment.  
"He told me I should not – _must _not bring Sam. Where we are going, he cannot follow," Cas replied.

Charlie and Sam glanced at each other, and then back at Cas, shocked.  
"What? Why?" Charlie asked, as Sam continued to stare dumbly.  
"He isn't . . . He's not pure," Cas explained.  
"What the hell does that mean?!" Sam asked, frustrated, jerking his arm away.

Cas just cast a sad look at him, before looking at the floor. The room went silent, save for the beeping of the computer waiting for Charlie's input.

Trying to lighten the mood with her and Sam's shared interest of Harry Potter, Charlie muttered, "Purebloods suck anyway," And turned back to the computer, noting the coordinates and shutting down the trace programme.

* * *

_Hope you enjoyed! Please review, if you have the time and inclination - feel free to add any comments about the direction of the story, or questions about any of it! Thanks :)_


	4. Chapter 4

_**AN: **__I am SERIOUSLY sorry about the delay in getting the next chapter up! First I was on holiday in Berlin, then I was busy with my A-level results - I got in to my top choice Uni, yipee! _

_I was stuck on the ending of this chapter but carried on writing the next bit anyway to rid myself of the writer's block, and by the time this chapter was eventually finished and edited . . . Well, that brings us up to today!_

_Anyway, thanks so much to my two reviewers, and everyone who's favourited/followed this story! You're the greatest, and I really love your feedback. Enjoy this next chapter, featuring a flashback at the start as usual :)_

* * *

_Lebanon, Kansas, 2010_

"An unorthodox choice of location, Gabriel,"  
"_Don't_ call be Gabriel. And don't look at me, asswipe! If _you _weren't fidgeting like you've got lice down below, _I _woulda made a perfect landing,"  
"Don't forget yourself, Gabe. I'm your superior,"  
"Yeah, back in the 1950s! In the future, I'm your only chance of getting home. So _I'm _in charge, grandpa,"  
"I wish you'd refrain from teasing when we're on a case,"  
"Technically, it's _not _a case. Not yet,"  
"We're ensuring the survival of the Men of Letters. I'd suggest that no case is more important than this one,"  
"Yeah, speaking of which – wanna meet the two chuckleheads? I mean, uh – legacies?"  
"Indeed, I do. I would have liked to do so five minutes ago, but . . ."  
"Jeez, don't get snarky with me, or I'll dump your ass in the dark ages,"

The bathroom door swung open. Slowly.

On one side, the Winchester brothers in their motel room, standing defensively by the door after hearing voices from inside. Dean, with a ball of fire enveloping his fist, ready to unload straight into someone's face if they tried anything funny with him. Sam, with his Taurus, ready to read minds and shoot heads if he needed to.

On the other side, Henry Winchester: a Man of Letters, dressed in an immaculate blue suit, beaming as if he didn't have a care in the world. Next to him, Gabe: dressed in modern clothes, slightly more pessimistic, and eyeing the two brothers warily (though it didn't stop a cocky grin from spreading across his face).

"Excellent!" Henry cried, "They're mutants!"

There was a pause of tense confusion, before Sam shifted, and asked:  
"Excuse me?" He asked, wondering why the hell that would be the first thing to come out of the mouth of a stranger that had just appeared in their bathroom out of thin air. If he was honest with himself, actually, _anything _coming out of the mouths of a couple of guys who did that would probably be damn weird.  
"Well, at least, your brother is – I _hope _he is, or he's in for one hell of a burn!" Henry elaborated enthusiastically with a smile that the brothers failed to return. "I hope you are too!"  
"Wait, hang on – you _hope _we're mutants?" Dean asked; in his confusion, the flame in his hand died down slightly. "Who _hopes _someone they're meeting is a mutant?" He asked, looking at his brother, who simply shrugged, keeping an eye on the two intruders.  
"A Man of Letters, of course!" Henry clarified.  
"A – a what?" Dean asked, completely lost.

Gabe sighed wearily, though offered no explanation. In fact, suddenly, he was sitting on the couch, devouring a bag of popcorn that he seemingly got out of nowhere during his blink-of-the-eye round trip.  
"Whoa!" Sam cried, turning his gun on Gabe.  
"You ain't seen nothing yet, big boy," Gabe replied, with a wink and a suggestive eyebrow being raised. Sam gulped at the implication, and frowned. Who the hell was this guy . . . ?

"I should introduce myself. I'm a Man of Letters. My name is Henry Winchester, and this is my compatriot, Gabriel," He explained, holding his hand out for Dean to shake.  
"Henry Winchester?" Sam asked, turning his head – but not his weapon – to the suited man.  
". . . Like our grandfather," Dean worked out. He didn't take the man's hand just yet.  
"The very same," Henry confirmed.  
"So that makes you, what – a time traveller?" Sam asked tentatively.  
"Cute _and _smart," Gabe commented, then reconsidered: "Well, not so much _smart_, actually. Obviously, I'm a time _and _space manipulator. Or else, how could I do stuff like _this_?"

Almost before his sentence finished, Gabe was gone, on the other side of the room, and Sam found his gun in the shorter man's hand.

Sam looked wide-eyed over at Dean for backup. Dean just shrugged, trying and failing to hide a smirk at his brother's expense. Sam scowled.  
"So, are you?" Henry asked simply.  
"Am I . . . ?" Sam asked.  
"A mutant, dummy," Gabe finished, rolling his eyes.  
"What's it to you?" Dean questioned, fiercely protective as always.  
"Ahh – see, not only am I your grandfather-"  
"-Which is trippy as hell, by the way," Dean added, looking at Sam, who nodded in agreement.  
"-As a Man of Letters, it's my job to learn all about mutants. We're a secret society, founded in the 1940s, before the public even knew about the existence of mutants. I'm from 1958, though – I've been initiated, and I'm here to give you _this_," He produced a box from his trouser pocket, making both brothers edgy in the process, in case he pulled a weapon on them. "Relax," Henry told them, opening the box up. Sam and Dean peered inside. It was a key.

"Uh . . . Thanks?" Dean ventured.  
"That's quite alright," Henry assured him, not understanding the underlying question in Dean's words.  
". . . What is it?" Dean tried again.  
"Surely your father told you about . . . ?" At their blank expressions, Henry frowned. "Aparrently not. This is the key to the Men of Letters bunker is Lebanon, Kansas,"  
"It's about thirty minutes from here – or, a thirtieth of a second, if you're me," Gabriel boasted, dusting off an imaginary speck of dirt from his shoulder with a grin. Sam snorted.  
"Listen, there's no freaking way in _hell _you're part of some . . . Mutant investigation _secret society_," Dean denied. "Dad never told us-"  
"I suppose I must never have told him about it in my later life," Henry mused, with a troubled expression. He brightened again: "No matter. The bunker's yours now, along with any other Men of Letters living there. Since Gabriel told me you were in need of a place to live-" The time-traveller shrugged when the brothers glared at him, "-and a stable occupation, other than your 'cases' – which, by the way, are basically equivalent to what the men of Letters did in _my _time, aside from the academia – I figured you would need this,"

He thrust the key towards Sam, who grimaced at it. Dean frowned at him, extinguishing his flame, and wondering why he didn't take it.  
"Listen, sir – I don't know if your friend has told you about our dad – uh, your son," He began cautiously, "But he wasn't – _isn't _in your secret society for a reason – I mean, even if he'd known about it, which I don't think he did,"  
"Why not?" Henry asked, looking puzzled.  
"Because the guy hates mutants," Dean explained gruffly, catching on to what Sam was saying. "He travelled round the country going to anti-mutant rights rallies after some killed our Mom,"  
"My point is, um – yeah, we're mutants, but . . . The way he raised us – to hate mutants. Even if we didn't agree. I just feel like . . . We don't deserve this," Sam finished, looking anywhere but his grandfather's face.

Henry's eyes clouded over with grief and disappointment.  
"Oh," He said softly.  
"Sorry, mister- you've got the wrong guys. The other Men of Letters – if they're even real – wouldn't exactly want us hanging around, given our upbringing, even if we've rejected it," Dean agreed with his brother.  
". . . Then it is simply even more important for you to be part of this," Henry realised.  
"Sorry?" Said all three mutants together.  
"If you can show that even those with the most anti-mutant upbringings can change their minds, then there's no excuse not to accept that mutants are people too. None, whatsoever," Henry explained, with a face of determination. He handed the key box to Sam again. The younger Winchester reluctantly took it.

"I must take my leave now. I have matters to attend to back in 1958, and I'm sure you'll want to get acquainted with the other Men of Letters without me around to brother you. The address is on a slip on paper in the box,"  
"Right . . . Well, uh – thanks, Henry," Sam sad, with a tentative smile.  
"Yeah. You're alright," Dean added, and Sam knew that was as close to thankful as Dean would get. After all, Henry and their Dad never had the best relationship. In fact, he swore that the guy left when Dad was really young . . .

"Oh, and Sam?"  
"Huh?" Sam asked, surprised to be pulled out of his thoughts by Henry addressing him again.  
"What variety of mutant are you?" Henry asked.  
"Uh – psychic. I have a, um . . . _Variety_ of powers," He answered awkwardly.  
"Including mind reading?" Gabriel asked, appearing next to Henry with a quirk of his eyebrow. Sam made the mistake of reading his mind, and wrinkled his nose. "Just testing!" The time-traveller laughed. Dean eyed him with suspicion and annoyance. Sam shook his head and laughed.  
"Yeah. Maybe another time, Gabe," He replied to the time-traveller's thoughts, leaving Dean even more perplexed.  
"Another time. Sure thing, sasquatch," He replied with a wink, handing Sam's Taurus back.

In the blink of an eye, the strange visitation was over. Dean cast his gaze over to Sam, who returned it, setting his gun down and scratching his head.

"Did that shit actually just happen, or . . . ?"

* * *

_Present Day_

"So who is this lady, anyway?" Charlie asked, slamming her trunk of her car shut, and trying to distract Sam from his brooding. Currently, he was leaning against the yellow vehicle with a thousand-yard stare.  
"Honestly, we don't know. Dad . . . Uh, our father, ran into her a few times at his rallies – she was at the counter-demonstrations. He had some pretty big blowouts with her – he was even arrested one time, but he escaped from the station," Sam admitted with the embarrassment that went hand-in-hand with talking about his father and his various exploits.  
"Why is it every time I ask a question, I put my foot in it?" She asked, sighing.  
"Nah, it's okay – it was a very long time ago," Sam dismissed with a smile, "But, yeah – she owns a bar up in Nebraska, apparently. We figured she's either a mutant, or a mutant supporter, if she was at so many pro-mutant counter-demonstrations. So, she could give us some information – y'know, if anything like this is happening to other mutants, other than Cas, and – and Dean as well, now, I guess. It's worth stopping up there, on the way to Wyoming," He finished.

"Speaking of which," Charlie said, looking at the steps of the bunker, where Dean had just emerged from locking up. Cas was trailing behind him, looking very preoccupied.  
"You guys ready to hit the road?" Dean asked Sam and Charlie.  
"Sure," Sam replied. If he was honest, he kind of missed doing so much travelling. They saw a lot of really cool stuff; met a lot of interesting people, and saved a lot of them, too. Although having a permanent home was really refreshing, and nice, for once. It was something he hadn't had since the fire at his apartment in Palo Alto.

"You two go in the big yellow taxi," Dean asserted, indicating the two of them, and then Charlie's car. She rolled her eyes.  
"And you guys can go in the Batmobile," She hit back, pointing at the Impala.  
"Hey, don't knock the Batmobile," Dean admonished, although he was smirking. Sam thought he was probably really pleased that she'd basically implied that he was Batman.

The younger Winchester sighed. It wasn't that he was offended that Dean wanted to speak alone with Cas – they had a lot to discuss, now that the 'voice of God' had told him to bring Dean with him for whatever 'job' he had in mind – it was just that Sam was kind of looking forward to being alone on the road again, with his brother. Dean had promised to help him through what he was going through . . . But that could wait til another time soon. He could hang on until then. He hoped.

The journey passed pretty quickly, with Charlie trying her best to keep up with Dean. Her and Sam maintained a steady stream of amiable conversation; he found that, like Dean, conversations with her involved cultural references in spades – although hers were inevitably more nerdy. He understood more of them than he'd care to admit.

Only once did the topic verge on being serious.  
"So when you get to the place the signal's telling us to go, in Wyoming . . . Do you reckon whoever's there will get all 'no room at the inn' on your ass?" Charlie asked, glancing over at Sam. He sighed, and shrugged.  
"Don't know. Depends how serious they are about me being 'impure', or whatever," He considered, looking down at his hands. The rumble of the car filled up the silence his words left in their wake. Charlie took a breath.

". . . Obviously what you've experienced with your Dad, and everything else in your life, I don't wanna sound like I'm teaching you to suck eggs or anything, but . . . I know a thing or two about rejection," She admitted, keeping her eyes carefully on the road. He looked up at that, staring at her steadily impassive face. He frowned, and she finally looked over. "What? It's hard being gay _and _a mutant,"

He smiled sympathetically. She smiled briefly back, before turning back to the road.

"But what I've learned is . . . Well, there's always a reason behind it, no matter how messed up. With your Dad, it was how your Mom died – with homophobes, it's cause their God's telling them it's sick, or wrong, or – whatever bullshit excuse they come up with. Sometimes it's cause they're in the closet – you see, it's like a distraction," She looked over to him, and asked, "You follow?"  
"Yeah," He agreed, thoughtfully, "Go on,"  
"What I'm saying is, this rejection . . . It doesn't make sense. I mean, God wants Cas. Fair enough, he might be an Angel of the Lord for all we know. But – he also wants Dean? I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the guy – but he's done some shit. And so have you,"  
"Thanks!" Sam snorted.  
"What I'm saying is – why him, not you? There's a reason behind this rejection, and it's not adding up. There's something else at play here," He nodded, slowly accepting it.

He looked out at the scenery, as Kansas became Nebraska. They'd be there soon, if Dean's navigation skills were still up to par. And, with a lifetime of experience under his belt, they'd damn well better be.

After a moment or two of silence, she added, "It's a major distraction, too. Like, right now, your brother's probably so turned around worrying about you that he's probably not even really thinking about why _he's_ being summoned too. It's like Han Solo tapping that stormtrooper on the shoulder, and slipping right by! Easiest tactic ever. Although, uh – your brother's a little short for a stormtrooper," She added, with a smirk.  
"Says you!" Sam quipped.  
"Pfft, who wants to be a stormtrooper when you can be Princess Leia?" Charlie reasoned.  
"Or better yet, have a tattoo of her," Sam teased with a grin.  
"That was one time!" Charlie protested, but laughed all the same.

As they'd set off mid-morning after Charlie had tracked the frequency, when they arrived, it was around lunchtime. After three and a half hours of getting chewed out by Cas for asking questions that the 'Angel' regarded as blasphemous, Dean was sick and tired of it. Cas was all '_we shouldn't test Him' _and '_you too are a servant of Heaven now, Dean_' and '_you have been chosen_', and it was doing his head in. In addition to _that _can of worms, Cas was being particularly shady on the topic of Sam: Dean had been seriously worried after what the other three had reported back about Cas' latest Q&A with the voice of 'God', along with Sam's terrifying little 'exponential mutant' theory. But when he tried to quell his fears by asking Cas to clarify what he meant, the other man simply pursed his lips, or turned away, or told him not to ask him about it.

In short, it had been the longest three and a half hours of his life. On the drive to Wyoming, he would insist on having Sam back in the Impala, just like the good old days. It was a shame, really: Cas was usually such good company, and funny in a brand new way that Dean hadn't even really known was possible until he met the guy. But today – hell, since he'd heard to voice of 'God' – he was _not _fun to be around.

He slammed the door of the Impala, and watched as Cas followed suit; Charlie drove up beside them and parked. She and Sam got out of their car, laughing.  
"Well I'm glad _someone _had a good journey," He grumbled. Cas glared at him, and the others quieted down significantly. They all turned to the building they'd pulled up to, on a dusty back road in East-Jesus nowhere.

Harvelle's Roadhouse. It appeared to be shut, but Dean knew he would have found the place very inviting if he'd come here when they were open: it just looked like his kind of joint – the type of place he and Sam would have come, and perhaps stayed the night at, before Henry had gifted them their home. Cas looked less than pleased with it, and Charlie looked nervous, like she was afraid if she went in, she'd never see the light of day again. Dean rolled his eyes.

"Let's see if anyone's home," He said to the group with a grin. He made his way to the front door, and noticed with pleasure that there was a faded, yet still prominent, rainbow double-helix sticker on the door: _mutants welcome_. It was a universally acknowledged sign – he just hoped it didn't mean that they were frequented by Rogues, too.

He tried the door, but found it locked: he gestured to Sam silently, and his brother provided his lock-picking kit. Within minutes, the door was open.

A scent that made Dean feel warm and at home greeted him: the smell of fried food, beer and engine oil. This was clearly a place for motor enthusiasts, as well as mutants. He'd noted a place clearly used for bikers to park outside, for one thing.

"What's her name?" Dean asked Sam, who had brought their father's journal with him.  
"Uh . . . Ellen. Ellen Harvelle. Dad did a lot of research on her, he found out she owned this place, and has a daughter, one-"

"Jo Harvelle," A blunt yet feminine voice sounded behind them. They all turned, to find a petite blonde girl in her mid-twenties, with narrowed eyes holding a shotgun pointed at them. _She must have come through the store-room door_, Dean thought, cursing himself for not checking all the entrances. "What the hell are you doing here? Who are you? What do you want?" She asked, aiming the weapon at each of them in turn. All four of them had their hands raised by now.

Charlie, with an expression like a deer caught in the headlights, looked over to Dean. Cas also looked over to Dean, expectantly. Dean looked at Sam, who shrugged. Dean just rolled his eyes. _Useless. The lot of 'em. _

"We're here to see Ellen Harvelle. Your Mom?" Dean half-replied, half-asked. He didn't really expect an answer, so when the girl simply looked him up and down slowly with suspicion, he wasn't surprised.  
"Mom," She called loudly, and hit her foot on the floor twice. There was the sound of footsteps somewhere in the back of the building, before an older woman emerged from another door, brandishing a rifle. They clearly had some kind of secret code worked out, which Dean found both impressive and irritating in his current predicament.

"Who are they?" Ellen asked simply of her daughter, not addressing the four of them directly.  
"They didn't say," Jo responded in kind.  
"Well? Speak up, boy," She demanded of Dean, as he seemed to be the leader.  
"I'm Dean, this is Sam," He replied quickly, indicating his brother, "And this is-"

"Sam and Dean," Ellen murmured, looking pensive for a moment, and lost in thought. Suddenly, she looked to have an epiphany, her eyes burning with fury. "_Winchester_?! John Winchester's boys?" She asked, cocking the rifle.

Each of the four of them began to protest at the same time. Ellen rolled her eyes.  
"Sit. The lot of you," She commanded, indicating the bar. They obliged, looking at her warily, and each other as if to say, _why the hell did we come here?! _

"You're damned fools, you know that?" She asked, with a cold smile on her face. "Thinkin' you can come here, to my damn bar, and finish what your Daddy started? How dare you!"  
"Actually, technically, we're not even related to John, so we'll just be on our w-" Charlie tried, indicating her and Cas, and moving to leave.  
"All of you," Ellen clarified, looking sternly at the redhead, who promptly shut up.

The older woman sighed, and shook her head.  
"I knew this day would come. Your Daddy finished off my Bill, now he's trained his boys up and sent 'em after me to keep me quiet, kill my daughter-" Her voice was laced with worry.  
"Ma'am, we mean you no harm – not you, or your daughter," Sam tried to explain softly.  
"Then why break in?" Jo asked harshly.  
"Because we need your help," Dean replied.

Ellen barked out a laugh, and held the rifle back up to his head, "Yeah? A Harvelle, helping a Winchester. Not in this life," She dismissed.  
"We're more than Winchesters. We're mutants, Mrs. Harvelle," Sam elaborated gently, knowing the news was going to be hard for her to hear after so many preconceptions – based on their father – had formed in her mind. "We haven't seen our Dad in years. He – well, he disowned us, when he found out what we were,"

Ellen was breathing a little too harshly, and her eyes glazed with sudden tears.  
"John didn't send you?" She murmured, her voice barely audible as she had trouble getting the notion out of her mind.  
"Lady, we don't even-" Dean swallowed, before finishing: "We don't even know if the bastard's alive,"

Ellen cast a look over to her daughter, slowly lowering her gun. Jo didn't follow suit, though: instead, she called to them: "Prove it,"  
"Huh?"  
"If you're mutants, then prove it,"  
"Okay, well, uh – see, I'm a psychic. I have these dreams of the future most nights, and I can read minds. I could ask you to think of a number-"  
"That can be faked. You could be some mentalist, or an illusionist, or whatever," Jo cut in, narrowing her eyes at Sam, who shut his mouth and gulped, looking to the others for help. Charlie shrugged; Cas was looking out of the window like he didn't give a rat's ass what happened in here. Of course he would: as a healer, he wouldn't be killed, or even injured, if they shot him.

"Hey, sweetheart," Dean called, catching Jo's attention, "How's this for an illusion?"

Jo and Ellen gasped when a wooden chair beside them seemed to spontaneously catch fire. They leapt away from it in surprise. Ellen looked over at him in anger, and yelled: "Fix that right now before I-"  
"Alright, alright! Sorry," Dean apologised, putting the fire out with a thought before it could spread any further. The chair sat smouldering in the new silence. Ellen lowered her gun, but grit her teeth as she looked over at Dean. She sighed, and finally said:  
"You owe me a chair, Winchester," She stated evenly, before making her way to behind the bar while Jo set down her gun on it. The four of them turned around, thankful that weapons had been taken out of the conversation. Except for Cas. He didn't really mind either way, though obviously he preferred peaceful conflict resolution. _Those who live by the sword, die by the sword._

Ellen set about getting out beers for them, casting her gaze upon each of the four travellers in turn, and sizing them up. While Sam and Dean expected it, and felt they deserved it, Charlie squirmed a little, not used to such obvious, stern scrutiny from someone she knew to still be carrying a weapon. But when Ellen's expression softened slightly, she knew she'd been deemed 'safe', for now. The bartender's stare fixed on Cas last, who just stared blankly, unblinking, until eventually Ellen had to look away herself. There was something . . . _Strange_ about that man. Unearthly.

"What's the deal with your friend here?" She asked the brothers. Dean rolled his eyes.  
"Angel of the Lord," Dean replied, with air quotation marks. Cas glared at him.  
". . . He thinks he's an Angel?" Jo asked, appearing behind the bar and leaning over to talk to Dean. Though she appeared young, he could tell she'd been through some tough shit in her life. He could always tell when someone had been through the meat-grinder. It was a look he knew he and Sam shared with the youngest Harvelle.  
"Yup," Sam answered swiftly, before this broke out into an argument between Dean and Cas, "Actually, that's kinda what we're here for. You see recently – well, Cas isn't a psychic like me, but he's been hearing these voices,"  
"Just one voice. The-" Cas began, but Jo finished his sentence:  
"The voice of God?"

The rest of them, besides Ellen, stared at her. Cas' face, Dean noticed, was joyful.  
"You have also been chosen?" He asked her. She shrugged and nodded. "This is a great honour, Josephine. You should be very proud," Cas informed her, in a chiding yet still somehow happy voice. "My name is Castiel. As my friends have informed you, I am indeed, an Angel of the Lord," He told her sincerely, reaching across the bar to take her hand, and shake it. He placed his other hand on top of their entwined palm, and looked deeply into her eyes. "You have been chosen, as Dean and I have, for a higher purpose,"

Jo just watched him dubiously, and slowly nodded with a small smile of disbelief. Sam and Dean watched the whole display sceptically.

"Wonder why God chose me as his resident bruiser," Jo wondered aloud.  
"His what?" Dean asked, suddenly lost.  
"She's got superhuman strength, Dean," Sam explained, looking at Jo with a smile spreading across his face.  
"Like Walt?" Dean asked, and Sam's smile turned to a grimace for a moment. He and Walt didn't get on, historically.  
"No, stronger," Jo chuckled, "See, he and I had an arm wrestle last time he was here, and I wiped the floor with him. I guess a my shit-ton of unexplainable power and strength beats his above-average muscles mass. Funny how no two mutations are the same," She mused.  
"I'll say," Dean replied, baffled, and wondering exactly how strong this petite woman was if she could overpower the incredibly strong Walt. He was more than a little enthralled with the youngest Harvelle already.

Charlie was a little distracted during this exchange, as she scoped the place out, to find a man with a serious mullet asleep on the pool table. She smirked, and wondered what sort of crazy night he'd had that necessitated sleeping somewhere like that.  
"Get a load of that guy," She muttered to Dean. He followed her gaze, and matched her smirk with one of her own.

"Mrs. Harvelle-" Sam ventured.  
"Ellen," She corrected.  
". . . Ellen. We came here because we tracked whatever is talking to Cas – and, uh to your daughter, too – to Wyoming. We stopped here because we wondered if you knew anything about what's going on?" He continued, eyes hopefully.  
"Sorry, I can't help you folks – but Ash can," She replied with an amused glint in her eye, softening up for the first time since their arrival. When her visitors simply looked puzzled, she yelled, "Ash!"

The guy with the mullet sat up mumbling incoherently about 'closing time'. Dean hid a snigger; Sam just looked slightly concerned.  
"That's Ash?" He asked.  
"Yup. He's a genius," Jo replied with a grin.

After a few minutes of grumbling and demanding alcohol, Sam and Dean were sitting with the ramshackle genius.  
"What you wanna know about?" He asked, between swigs of beer. The brothers looked at one another. Dean looked over longingly to where Charlie was attempting to chat up Jo, and cursed her because that's what he'd be doing too if it weren't for this whole fucked up situation with Cas. The angel was sitting by the window, watching the crops in the roadside field sway in the breeze. Though he wasn't smiling, he looked content, for now. Soon he would want to leave for Wyoming.

"So, uh . . . Did Jo mention that she's been contacted by, uh . . ." Sam began uncertainly.  
"God? Yeah, she might've mentioned it," The other man answered sarcastically.  
"Right. Well we need to see if there's been any mention of that kinda thing - know how widespread this is. I mean, it's happened in two states so far, so who knows how far this crap's spread?"

Cas turned and gave Dean a disapproving look from across the room. Dean just smiled and waved back at him.

"Uh-huh. Well just so happens you came to the right place. I can get a national search set up – not exactly legal to hack into police reports or anything, but . . ."  
"Police records?" Sam asked, confused. Ash and Dean looked at each other before turning to him again:  
"Yeah. You know, just in case there's been any crime related to it. I doubt it, though," Ash clarified.  
"Can't hurt to search anyway," Dean added, looking once again at Cas as he spoke. Cas just turned back to the window. "How long will it take?"

Ash sighed, and sniffed. "Give me . . . 52 hours,"

Sam and Dean glanced at each other, before Dean replied:  
"Sure thing man. Gotta go and get fuel for my baby anyway," He looked at Sam, and indicated the door. To be honest, the fuel could have waited until they were on the road again, but he wanted to spend some time with his brother, and away from all these nut jobs who thought they were being spoken to by God. It was driving him crazy, he was pretty sure.  
"They Chevy Impala? Nice," Ash commented. Sam rolled his eyes.  
"Thanks man. Dig the haircut, by the way," Dean replied with a grin.

"Business up front – party in the back," Ash replied, getting up from his bar stool and walking backwards away from the brothers as he spoke. He swaggered off to some back room or other to set up his national search for mutant activity pertaining to hearing the 'voice of God'.

"I like that guy," Dean said cheerily, after he and Sam had told the others where they were going with a quick wave. Sam simply shook his head, but couldn't help the smile that crossed his face. It was going to be good riding shotgun with his brother again, even for a short while. Even though they were together all the time, they never really spoke outside of the car, and, well – with everything that was going on, he felt a little . . . Isolated, especially from Dean.

Truth was, he missed Dean.

* * *

_If you've got a character you'd like to see or hear more of in the next few chapters, feel free to mention it! I'll try and work their POV more into my planned story. Not many people are reading this, so I can easily try and take all of your comments/suggestions into account :)_


	5. Chapter 5

_**AN:**__ I'M SO ANNOYED AT THIS WEBSITE RIGHT NOW because this was supposed to be chapter 5 and ya know what, it never got in there. It's probably my fault but right now i'm blaming hehe_

_So. Sorry about that. It's just a bit of background on Castiel, aaaaand something that happened to Sam and Dean when they went for gas before the journey to Casper feat. Walt and Roy; hurt!Sam/protective!Dean style thing. Grr. _

_I'm so sorry about this i'm so annoyed. Thanks for understanding!_

* * *

_Pontiac Illinois, 2011_

The cold January night Jimmy Novak ceased to exist, and Castiel was born, seemed a night like any other.

Jimmy, his wife Amelia and his twelve year old daughter Claire had shared a standard dinner time: talking about Jimmy's day at work, Claire's day at school, and so on. Jimmy sold advertising time for A.M. radio: a job which he didn't find interesting, but was thankful for all the same, with his daughter growing up fast. She'd be at college before he knew it, he thought to himself sadly, after chastising her for reaching for food before he'd said grace.

Family was important to him, yes – but God and his faith were also a high priority. He couldn't live without God, just like he couldn't live without them.

So when one priority suddenly overtook the other, it came as a shock to his wife and daughter.

Jimmy had fought with his daughter over what time she should go to bed the fight hadn't ended well, with her shouting at him and him sending her to bed early. To tell the truth, he was tired: he kind of wanted an early night tonight, anyway. He'd been having awful dreams of late.

After the fight, he approached his wife, who eyed him over her newspaper. She'd been listening to the fight.  
"You should go easier on her, you know,"  
"I know that," Jimmy acknowledged with a weary sigh, sitting himself down on the couch next to her. She leaned into him, laying her head on his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her.  
"She's getting older now, Jimmy. She's gonna want to stay up later,"  
"She should get more sleep, Ames. How else is she going to do well at school? And don't get me started on how she always goes to eat before I've said grace,"

Amelia rolled her eyes.

"So? She's making her own choices. She might not believe what you believe, honey. What if she doesn't believe in God at all?"

Jimmy rubbed his tired eyes with one hand, and sighed. He didn't answer.

". . . I'm gonna go and take the trash out," He told her, standing up with a smile, she smiled back, and headed upstairs. He made his way to the kitchen, grabbing his overcoat to defend himself from the pervasive cold of the wintery outside. He took the full garbage bag and unlocked the front door, leaving it slightly open as he walked over to the sidewalk, where the trash cans stood waiting for him.

As he walked, he looked up into the night sky: the North Star, forever bright, seemed infinitely brighter tonight than it had for a long time. He smiled up at it; it felt to him like God was sending him a message. _Keep faith, Jimmy. I have a plan for you. _

However, as he continued to stare, the North Star became clouded over. He frowned, and dumped the garbage bags into the trash cans, shoving the lids back on hastily in his hurry to get back inside, and out of the cold.

_Maybe I was a bit harsh on Claire_, he thought to himself. Hell, he'd been a doubter at one point during his adolescence, though he was ashamed to admit it now. He just had to accept that it was part of his daughter growing up. This too would pass, eventually. And he'd been there to see her through it.

It only took a second before he realised something was wrong. The air had gone still, and unseasonably warm. Fat droplets of rain flew down and in his directions, and flashes of light began to erupt from the sky. His eyes widened as he looked up at what he realised what a freak lightning storm.

_In the middle of January? _He thought to himself: _impossible! _

He ran towards the house, noticing that Claire had appeared in the doorway.  
"At least let me have 5 more minutes so I can pack my bag for-"

"Claire! Get back!" He yelled, startling her into stumbling backwards.

He almost made it to the door. He was a second too late. The lightening struck his back, making him tense all over, and slump to the ground. He blacked out.

Claire stood totally shocked in the doorway, looking down upon her father's body in horror. He looked dead; he was at least unconscious. But then . . . He wasn't, anymore.

He stood up slowly, until his back was straight, and his head was held high. He had a stiff, precise posture that failed to waver, even as further thunderclaps sounded and flashes of lightening danced around him.

In the light from the lightening, she could have sworn she'd seen the shadow of wings behind him.

". . . Daddy?" She asked, her eyes welling up with tears of relief that he was okay. She'd truly thought him dead.  
"I'm not your father," He replied, looking her dead in the eye, unblinking. "Castiel, an Angel of the Lord sent to Earth to do his work," He looked up to the sky for a moment, before turning to leave suddenly, his tan trenchcoat billowing around him.  
"Wait! Please!" She cried in desperation, but didn't step outside. It was still dangerous out there.  
"Goodbye, Claire Novak," He called behind him, opening the garden gate and shutting it behind him. When he looked briefly back at her, his eyes seemed a brighter blue to her than before.

Then he turned and walked down the street. The thunder and lightning, as if by magic, disappeared. As soon as she was sure, she ran out onto the road, trying to catch her father before he left. But he was gone.  
"Where's your father? I saw him leave from the window upstairs-" Amelia asked, appearing behind her daughter and searching the street with confused eyes.  
"It . . . It wasn't . . ."

Amelia looked down at her, puzzled, as Claire finally met her eyes and finished telling her everything she knew about her father from that moment onwards.  
"It isn't him . . . Not anymore,"

* * *

Sam stood absently looking at the collection of newspapers at the back of the gas station that had caught his eye as he walked past. Each one either had a headline or a smaller article on the front page about the bank job they stopped a few days ago. Every single one failed to distinguish between the mutants that stopped it, and the ones who saved the lives of civilians.

He wasn't surprised, really. The three of them had been mentioned a few times in the papers, and every time, it seemed like the writers got the wrong end of the stick – either deliberately, or by accident. The effect was the same either way, with them experiencing periods of time where they were unable to stay in motels, or go shopping, or even walk down the street: it was awful, without even considering the fact that they were never thanked for helping out; were always blamed for whatever crime it was they'd helped stop, with the authorities taking all the credit.

After a while, though, the next big mutant story came along, and they were forgotten; able to get on with their lives again, without having to hide.

Sam sighed, dismayed that they'd have to keep a lower profile than usual when searching Sunrise for whatever was talking to Cas in the guise of God. Or, if Cas was right, when they were looking for _God himself_. Which he didn't want to think about.

"Winchester?"

Sam tensed up when he was accosted from the front of the store. A quick mental check confirmed, without even looking up, that it was Walt and Roy. Fucking _perfect_.

Walt was a mutant – although his increased muscle mass was hardly comparable to, say, being able to set things on fire with your mind. As Jo had mentioned earlier, despite his size advantage, he wasn't even as strong as she was – but he was a mutant all the same. That didn't stop him from hating almost all other mutants, though.

Roy wasn't a mutant, but he worked with Walt doing basically the same job as the Men of Letters – albeit a more bloodthirsty, sometimes homicidal version. Sure, Rogues needed to be taken care of, but it made Sam pale to think that people like Walt and Roy would 'accidentally' kill them rather than bring them into custody, and not be reprimanded for it. But that was just how the world worked.

The two men referred to themselves as 'bounty hunters'. Sam didn't really know how he'd describe the Men of Letters, but he wouldn't choose those words. For one, they didn't collect payment when they dropped criminal mutants off at police stations.

Anyway, they sure as shit didn't like Sam. They were perfectly fine with his brother, and Cas – but they didn't like Sam one bit. Maybe it was because the papers always seemed to pick out 'the tall one' as the worst of the three of them whenever articles were written; maybe it was the fact that Sam could see into their heads, and knew the terrible thoughts they had approximately every three seconds.

So, while in one instance they were his colleagues, he also had reason to be afraid of Walt and Roy.

He didn't turn around when they called. _Maybe they'll go away_.

"Sammy Winchester,"

Sam bristled. No chance of getting away now.

"Walt. Roy," He greeted stoically, turning around with a wan smile.  
"Reading our minds again. Bad habit," Walt countered immediately, and when Sam turned to see his face, he could see a disingenuous smile plastered all over his face.  
"Sorry," Sam lied.  
"What's this about you in the paper, Winchester?" Roy asked gruffly, seeming slightly more concerned and less outright malicious than his partner.  
"A misunderstanding. A shifter, and some human accomplices," Sam replied, looking briefly at the floor and bracing himself for their reaction.  
"Mmm. Nasty business," Walt replied. He looked around, and saw that the clerk had disappeared off into a storeroom, leaving the three of them alone at the back of the store, out of view of everyone else. Sam realised this simultaneously, and gulped, cursing inwardly at himself for not moving into a better position. He made a break for it then, moving to casually put himself in view of the forecourt, and Dean, who was filling up the Impala.

He was interrupted, however, when Walt violently grabbed his jacket and smashed him into the wall beside the newspaper rack. He held Sam in place with one hand, and grabbed his throat with the other, squeezing so that Sam couldn't breathe anything but a tiny trickle of air. Shocked, Sam's eyes widened in panic, as he tried in vain to dislodge the strong man's fingers.

"See, we're disinclined to believe you, Winchester. We think you were involved in the job. You can't tell me you didn't take anything from the vault," Walt growled.  
"I didn't!" Sam rasped. Walt let Sam's shoulder go, so he was holding him by his neck only, and pushed him further up the wall. Sam grunted, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment and kicking out with his feet, which were no longer touching the ground. Walt grunted, tightening his grip, when Sam's foot hit him in the crotch. _Worth it_, Sam thought when he heard Walt's agonised and enraged thoughts.  
"Look at me when I say this, Sam," Roy commanded in a cold, careful voice; all trace of his concern earlier was gone, and Sam realised that it had merely been a front for the watching store clerk's benefit. Sam opened his eyes, which were becoming lazier with the lack of air. "If we see you in the papers one more time for anything other than rescuing a fucking puppy from a tree, we're coming for you. That's it. You're officially a Rogue, as far as we're concerned. And we'll let all the other bounty hunters know that you're fair game. Understand?"

"Let me – let me go!" Sam concentrated hard to get the words out – they ended up no more than a gasp in his exhaustion. He grit his teeth and closed his eyes again.

Suddenly, Walt dropped him. He crumpled to the floor, gasping air in. Slumped against the wall, he looked up at Walt and Roy, though there was no fear in his eyes now. Just hatred.  
"Understand?" Roy prompted again. Sam nodded, but winced, as the movement made his neck hurt.  
"You're lucky we're letting you go, Winchester. If I'd had _my _way, I would have snapped your fucking neck this time, instead of next time," Walt sneered, backing away and towards the door, Roy in tow shaking his head and looking Sam up and down. "Because believe me, there will be a next time. Your card's marked, Winchester,"

Sam just glared at them, and watched them go. He waited until this couldn't see him to rub his sore throat, and cursed the fact that there would be bruising there within a few minutes. He did up a higher button on his plaid shirt, and closed his eyes again, concentrating on his breathing. _Maybe I can hide this from Dean, at least for a little while. _

"Sir? Are you okay?"

He snapped his eyes open, and saw the face of the store clerk right in front of his. She was crouched down in front of him, her hand held out close to him, as if afraid he might fall down onto the floor at any moment.  
_Lucy. 18 years old. Hoping to go to Columbia to study law. Her Mom yelled at her for going out and drinking last night. Her boyfriend hasn't text her back and she's beginning to wonder if he even-_

"'M fine," He mumbled, standing up suddenly on his own and cutting off the stream of thoughts she was inadvertently broadcasting to him. He smiled blearily at her, and she warily smiled back. Standing up, her eyes lingered on her face . . . Sam could have pinpointed the exact moment she realised she'd seen his face before in the grainy security footage from the bank, even without reading her mind – it was written all over her face. He quickly made his way to the front of the store and, flashing her another quick smile, pulled out a $50 bill and put it on the cash desk, to try and cover the cost of fuel and a hastily grabbed packet of bing-bongs, before exiting quickly.

He didn't notice a pair of dark eyes watching him from across the forecourt, over the hood of an orange 1970 Mach-1 Mustang. He was preoccupied with making his escape.

When he arrived at the Impala, Dean looked even grumpier than he had before, stewing quietly in the driver's seat and looking pointedly at his watch.  
"Dude, what took you so long? Did you get the-?"  
Sam interrupted him, slapping the bing-bongs down onto the dashboard and slamming his door as he said, "The cashier made me. Drive,"

Dean didn't need telling twice.

After speeding well away from the gas station, Dean cast a worried glance at his brother, and noticed how he was idly brushing his fingers against the skin of his neck.  
"Sammy . . . What happened?" He asked with a frown.  
"Nothing. It's nothing," His brother replied irritably.  
"Then why are you looking like someone just knocked you for six?"

Sam just lowered his hands, and looked down at them. They fidgeted, and Dean's eyes lingered on them for a moment, before he sighed.  
"Look, man. I'm not the mind-reader here. You've gotta tell me what's going on. I mean, I know I'm not the sharing-and-caring type, but . . . This crap swinging your way right now – it's like, I don't know what to do about it . . . Hell, I don't even know what's going on with you anymore, Sammy," He added quietly, pointedly not looking over at his brother, and concentrating on the asphalt of the road a little too hard.

He heard his brother sigh, before he admitted, "I don't know either, Dean. And honestly? . . . It scares the crap outta me,"

Dean ran a hand down his face, and looked over at his brother. Sam was looking out of the window, so Dean couldn't see his face. "Me too," He licked is lips, wondering how to convince his brother to talk to him. "But . . . You, not letting me in like this? It makes things a hell of a lot worse. For both of us,"

Sam shifted slightly, but didn't reply. Dean had to wait five whole minutes before his brother confessed, without turning from the window:  
"It was Walt and Roy. They came in, and they told me that next time I was in the paper, they'd tell everyone I'd gone Rogue, and they'd kill me. They almost killed me just then, too. Walt strangled me for a couple of minutes," His voice was emotionless, if a little hoarse, as he spoke. Dean just stared at him in disbelief and rage.  
"Next time you're-?! God dammit, I'll kill those sons of bitches! What gives them the right to-" He collected himself for a moment, when he noticed that his anger was making Sam tense. ". . . What I mean is . . . They shouldn't have done that. It wasn't just you in the paper, and – did you tell them about the shifter?"  
"Yup. They didn't care. They don't blame you and Cas, either. Just me," He answered in a resigned voice.  
"What? Why?"

Sam just looked at him pointedly. Dean sighed.

"Fair enough, your powers are . . . Complicated and changing, but that doesn't mean you should be public enemy number one! We're working on it – we'll get there. They'll see,"  
"I don't think they care, Dean," Sam's voice was small – barely audible, in fact.  
"Well then that's their problem . . . I can't believe those bastards. You're doing _good_. Seriously, next time Sammy, we'll kick their asses. You'll see,"  
"Walt's a bit stronger than us, if you hadn't noticed," Sam reminded Dean sarcastically after a long pause, in which he visibly collected himself, and calmed his nerves. Dean smirked, recognising Sam's sarcasm as him trying to get over what had just happened to him.  
"Nah. No one's stronger than me. That's the first rule of being a big brother: you're stronger than everyone else,"  
"Whatever, Dean,"  
"Seriously. I'll deep fry that guy for touching you," Dean promised.

Sam just smiled, though he knew it was twisted to be happy at the thought of Dean hurting another human; a fellow mutant. But, really – he didn't care. He was just happy that Walt and Roy would see Dean's wrath; that he had Dean in the first place, fighting for him . . . That Dean was still on his side, when so many others clearly weren't.

At least, for now.

* * *

Story will continue as normal after this. Thanks!


	6. Chapter 6

_**AN: **I decided to update 'Haunting' before this. Hopefully the fact that this chapter is slightly longer will make up for the delay! _

_Thanks for all your lovely reviews. To the person who requested Meg - don't worry! She'll be along soon :)_

_EDIT: SORRY FOR THE CONFUSION here is chapter 6!_

* * *

"You sure this is the right place?"

Sam was known to give his brother some pretty serious bitch-faces, but Dean's one to him at that moment rivalled even his worst.  
"Yes," Dean replied in annoyance, "Highway 220, mile marker 57. Devil's Gate. I'm sure this is the right place,"

Remaining in the car while Charlie and Cas pulled up behind them, both Winchester brothers eyed up the building they'd arrived at. According to Charlie's computer, this was it: the source of the signal; the voice talking to Cas.

"Sure _looks_ like a cult," Dean grumbled unhappily, as he glared at the building with suspicion. Sam had to admit that he was right: it looked like a giant compound, or a ranch. It was in the middle of nowhere, too – the only local attraction was an old cowboy graveyard out back.  
"Yeah," He agreed softly.

Dean shook his head, his lips still turned down at the corners as he got out of the car, not taking his eyes off of the building, as if it were about to leap out and bite him. Sam followed him, and the four of them stood in front of the building, wondering if there was even anyone there.

"So . . . I say we knock, then run away," Charlie joked half-heartedly.  
"I don't think my Father would appreciate that," Cas replied plainly, though there was a cheeriness in his voice that belied the fact he thought he was about to meet . . . Well, if not God, then someone who spoke for him.

"Yeah, well I don't appreciate your Father sticking his holy nose into our business. I mean, why does the guy need not only you, but _me_ too? I mean, _me_?" Dean asked skeptically, pointing at himself.  
Cas smiled despite Dean's grumpiness. "The Lord works in-"  
"If you say 'mysterious ways', so help me I will kick your ass,"

"It's true, you know," A soft, light voice confirmed from beside where the four were huddled talking in a group. Sam, Dean and Charlie jumped, turning to look at the source of it, while Cas just beamed, not even slightly surprised despite the fact that she'd apparently just appeared out of nowhere.

"I'm Anna," The newcomer disclosed, smiling brightly at Dean and Castiel, as the four of them stared in shock at her.  
"No offense, Red, but don't creep up on me. I coulda-"  
"Deep-fried me? Don't worry, Dean. You have more control tha you think," Anna beamed. "And you must be Cas . . . It's good to meet you, brother,"

"Wait," Dean said, narrowing his eyes when Cas took Anna's hands in his own and stared lovingly into her eyes. Suddenly, the realisation hit him: "You think you're an angel, too?"  
"Yes," She replied, letting go of Cas' hands and looking deep into Dean's eyes. "I am an Angel of the Lord, like your friend here. We are God's children, and his warriors,"

Sam cleared his throat and hid a smirk when he caught one of Dean's thoughts along the lines of, '_why do the hot ones always have to be balls-to-the-wall crazy_'.  
"I'm Charlie, by the way," Charlie piped up, flashing Anna a charming smile.  
"Yes. I know. We've been expecting you. We require your services - you're welcome here, Charlie," Anna explained. She smiled at Charlie, Dean and Cas in sequence.

Her eyes lingered on Sam for a moment, and her face fell slightly. His previous smile faded into a frown; his eyes were disappointed.  
"I – I'm not sure how to . . . I'm not supposed to-" She began carefully.  
"No. We're not coming in with you unless Sammy's allowed in, too,"  
"Dean, please-" Cas began.  
"Not happening," Dean refused stubbornly.  
"Dean, it's okay. I'll . . . Go book us a motel room, or something," Sam suggested.  
"We have beds available here for all my Father has welcomed inside," Anna piped up.  
"Yeah, not happening, sister. Sammy," Dean sighed, and scrubbed a hand down his face. ". . . Take the Impala,"  
"It's okay, Dean. It's fine, really," Sam assured him hurriedly, despite his feeling of dejection, looking into his eyes.

'_Somewhere not too close' _thought Dean, glancing at Anna and back to Sam, who nodded almost imperceptibly to display his understanding and caught the car keys when Dean threw them to him. He didn't trust these people.

* * *

Dean, Cas and Charlie were shown into the bunker through a large reception area, which was comprised mainly of concrete; the walls were plastered with religious motivational posters, or obscured by bookshelves touting similar rhetoric. As they progressed through one of the many side-doors into a wide corridor, they all took a moment to look around in awe: the interior was homey and spacious, yet clearly utilitarian, with the concrete motif never quite abandoned. For example, there were small rooms with two camp beds apiece, but they were all adorned with books, and home-made quilts, and in most cases a kettle and mugs. Dean found himself raising an eyebrow at that, incredulous about this whole operation. Cas smiled lovingly at every person they passed, who smiled back and nodded by way of a greeting.

Dean, however, was finding the whole experience a little too _Invasion of the Body-snatchers _for his liking. In front of them, Charlie was chatting with Anna.  
"So, what – did I suddenly make the cut or something?" She asked in confusion.  
"He saw you coming. He decided to welcome you with open arms. He knows all about you, Charlie Middleton," Anna assured her.  
"Um – Bradbury. Charlie Bradbury," She corrected, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly and casting her gaze around.  
Anna caught her gaze with a small smile, and acknowledged the 'correction': "Of course,"  
"So, um - what do you do for fun around here, anyway?" Charlie asked with a flirtatious look, trying to change the topic subtly, and hide her discomfort by summoning her bravado.  
"My job is a full time one. We have many servants of God arriving every day,"  
"So you never find time to let a girl take you out for a drink, then?" Charlie asked, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.  
"I don't drink," Anna replied simply, the expression completely going over her head.  
". . . Right. No, of course you don't. Got it," Charlie floundered. Dean chuckled behind her, and she turned around, gesturing at him to be quiet.

"This is where we have to leave you, Charlie. We have some – technical issues we need you to solve. Dean and Castiel are needed elsewhere. Samandriel will see you to where you're needed," Anna told the other woman pleasantly. As if from nowhere, a scrawny kid fairly younger than the rest of them appeared, tapping Charlie on the shoulder, and leading her away, despite the panicked and bewildered look she was giving Dean. The older Winchester simply shrugged slightly and gave her a look, letting her know that it should be safe; if it wasn't, he'd come back for her, anyway.

"This way, please," Anna instructed the two remaining Men of Letters. Dean found the way she spoke creepy: it was almost robotic; mindlessly obedient. He was sure she couldn't just simply be _like _this.  
"Where are we going?" He asked her.  
"I'm taking you to my brother, Michael. He is the leader of this group. He speaks directly to God," Dean huffed out a sigh, thinking to himself that, yup, she probably meant 'brother' in a creepy poison-kool-aid way; she didn't mean he was her actual sibling. 'Angels', or . . . _Whatever_.  
"And no one else can talk straight to him? Only hear him talk?" Dean clarified, and both Anna and Cas nodded. "How convenient," He muttered sarcastically.

They walked through a maze of concrete corridors – with bedrooms on either side, plus rooms marked with words like 'laundry' and, worryingly enough, one with a large set of padlocks marked 'munitions' – until they were lead through a set of double doors into a large room that Dean couldn't help noticing looked almost exactly like the war room back at the Men of Letters' bunker. He frowned, and kept the same troubled and unimpressed look on his face as a dark-haired man, perhaps slightly younger than himself, turned around from a large map to look at him.

"Castiel. Brother," He greeted Cas first, who gladly accepted a hug from the stranger. Then, the dark-haired man turned to Dean.  
"Dean Winchester," The man stated, reaching out a hand to greet him. "It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Michael," Michael beamed at Dean, his face lit up and his eyes unblinking. It distracted Dean for a few seconds, before he came back to his senses.  
"Yeah, yeah – save it. I wanna know why you brought us here," He growled.

Michael sighed, a serious expression on his face, and indicated two chairs near to his guests before sitting in a third. Castiel obediently sat down, eyes shining with his eagerness to hear what Michael had to say to them. Dean chose to remain standing, folding his arms and keeping his frown a permanent fixture on his face from then onwards.

"God has work for you," Michael answered, looking into Dean's eyes.  
"I don't even believe in God," Dean replied, a wary look on his face now that he was being addressed by Michael again. The other man smiled slowly – a look echoed by Cas – coming across as condescending to Dean, but friendly to the God-loving Castiel.  
"You will," Michael assured him, only creeping Dean out further as he repeated in a whisper, ". . . You will,"

* * *

It took Sam around three-quarters of an hour to get to the nearest city: Casper. He laughed at that. Occasionally, when they'd been on cases impersonating the FBI, witnesses of crimes would swear blind that they'd seen a ghost. In fact, their job description could have been 'paranormal investigators' at one point, when they took a lot of jobs in the Deep South, where there was very little education about mutant abilities or capabilities (after religious fundamentalists deemed it 'unholy' to teach their kids about such things). There was a shocking amount of misinformed people claiming that 'ghosts' had caused accidents or deaths.

Calmly, they would have to explain that there was no such thing as ghosts. In most cases, it was a telekinetic mutant, moving things without touching them and convincing their neighbours that they had a poltergeist in the house. One time, it was an astral projector: someone who could literally project ghost-like pictures and figures from their head to anywhere they liked. They scared the living daylights out of a local resident who was causing them problems by refusing to sell his house. Needless to say, the Men of Letters reported them anonymously and moved on once they figured out who was sending their own psychically-produced evil version of Leia's 'help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope' hologram to the house's owner.

He pulled into a motel offering cheap nightly rates, which was cheerily called 'The Last Stop Motel'. Getting out of the Impala, he gulped as he looked at the sign telling him there was a vacancy, and at the nearly-empty parking lot. _Huh. Looks like there's a lot of vacancies_.

The office, when he entered, was what an estate agent might refer to as 'cosy'. There was a brown sofa on his left, and paintings of cowboys to his right. Behind the reception desk was a wall of keys on hooks – as was to be expected – and an old hunting rifle, mounted on the wall, with an ageing felt-tip sign that read 'yes, she's loaded' taped to the wall underneath.

A middle-to-old-aged woman whose name-tag stated she was called 'Janet' was sitting behind the reception desk, a cigarette hanging idly out of her mouth, playing solitaire with herself. With actual, dog-eared playing cards, rather than on a computer. He approached her and began to enquire about a room.

"Makes it easier to cheat this way," She supplied without looking up, before he could say anything.  
"Huh?" Asked Sam, confused and caught off-guard.  
"People always ask, 'why don't ya just use the computer'?" She explained, not looking up yet, "I say, 'cause it's harder to cheat on the computer'. You think with this much time to practise, I'd be good at it, but . . ." She inhaled deeply, eventually letting out the smoke and flipping over a few more cards.  
". . . Right," Sam accepted, still wary of her.

She finally looked up, giving him an appraising eye.  
_Oh, shit. Not another one_, she thought. He frowned, wondering what she was talking about.

"Not a mutant, are ya?"

_Shoot_. Discovered already. He floundered to give an excuse and began to back away, saying he left something in the car to easily evade this situation.  
"Relax, kid. Just saying cause we've had a few in the last coupla days. They all stop here before they head up to Devil's Gate. Don't know why they're goin' – ain't nothin' down there but an old cowboy graveyard . . . But they don't come back. Least the name o' this place is appropriate, right?"  
". . . I'm not going to Devil's Gate, ma'am," He replied, avoiding answering her question about whether or not he was a mutant. It was better not to let people know outright, in case anyone came asking.

She fixed him with a stern appraising look, then took her near-finished cigarette from her mouth, and tapped the ash from it in a nearby half-full ashtray. Her expression changed from stern to more amused.

_Doesn't look the type. Handsome, though. About the age Harry would be now. He's taller – wonder if Harry would have gotten that tall if he and his father hadn't been in the house when it-_  
"Nah. You don't look like the type. All religious nutters so far – let's see – king room is it?" She asked.  
"Two queens," He responded, thankful that that last part of the conversation was over.  
"Sure thing. What's your name, boy?" She requested, getting out a pen and hefting a large, thick notebook into position in front of her. He watched her doubtfully as she did this, and without looking up, said, "Again, makes it easier to cheat than on the computer,"

Sam understood, and felt a little safer. A quick read of her mind confirmed that, yes, she was talking about protecting the ID of vulnerable guests from the authorities, or anyone looking from them. He had to concede that burning or shredding a page of a guestbook was easier than permanently deleting a computer file with absolutely zero trace. He gave her a small smile.  
"Ain't got all day, boy," She reminded him.  
"Oh, uh – McQueen. Sam," He replied. She sighed.  
"You know, I never do find that people who trip over givin' me their name are actually givin' me their real name," She observed, writing it down anyway. "But what do I know, right?"

Without further ado, she manoeuvred her spinning chair towards the wall of keys on hooks, and selected one with a key ring of a cowboy hat on it. "Room six. You take care now," She said, tossing the keys to him and almost – _almost _– cracking an actual smile.

"You too," He murmured with a nod of gratitude. He left Janet to her doctored game of solitaire, thinking that, while not the most approachable person, she wasn't unkind – in fact, she would probably defend her business (and by extension, her guests) with that old hunting rifle on the wall.

He was glad that places like this existed. As he moved the Impala into the allocated space for room, he mused that if it weren't for people like Janet and their no-tell motels, he could have ended up in prison approximately a hundred times over.

She was a good person. He was sad about what had happened to her husband and son, though. Sam mused that he'd probably keep all of Dean's guns mounted on his walls like that, too, if he ever lost his brother.

The room was nothing to write home about. Brown and beige décor indicated that there hadn't been a re-think in the style department since the seventies. But, it didn't smell, the carpet wasn't completely nasty, and the bathroom could be classed as 'tolerable', if not 'good'. Overall, it was doable.

He threw his bags down on the bed furthest from the door – there was no point in trying to explain to Dean than if anything was coming, he'd sense it easily, and wake up to defend himself, when his brother was set in his belief that fire would defend them from anything much better – and went out to retrieve Dean's bag.

As he obtained the bag, he looked up at the sky: black clouds were gathering; the signs of an oncoming storm were plentiful, as the warm air swirled around him. There was something tangible about the atmosphere before a storm that Sam loved.

He decided he would take a trip downtown, on foot, to buy some supplies for the room: food, for when Dean came back, and a few beers to restock their cooler. He smiled to himself as he dropped Dean's bag on the other bed and went to his own, fishing out his hoodie and replacing his jacket with it. If it was going to rain, he was going to take a pre-emptive strike at least, or Dean would accuse him of going out and trying to catch his death. He rolled his eyes at the thought.

He grabbed his motel room keys and his wallet, and set off on the short walk downtown. As he walked, he could see the storm drawing closer, and felt this odd calm. It was amazing that, when he himself inside was feeling so turbulent and out of control, a display like this could make him feel better. Some things were more uncontrollable than himself.

It felt good to know that, even when he felt out of control, he still had some personal autonomy. He wasn't some unpredictable, random storm. He was a person.

He came across the 7/11 pretty easily. Downtown Casper had some pretty tall buildings considering that it wasn't that well heard of; that didn't mean that small pawn shops and grocery stores were few and far between.

Entering the store, he nodded to the clerk, who barely cast his eyes upwards to look at Sam, before turning back to his paper. Sam had a slight sense of Deja-vu: scanning the clerk's mind, he found that he was working in this place to save up money for college. He felt a little uneasy, considering the last time he'd been in a small store like this at the gas station, with an absent-minded clerk not really watching what was going on. He just hoped Walt and Roy didn't track him to this place.

He selected a couple of sandwiches for later and, smiling to himself, a cherry pie to appease Dean. He wasn't likely to be in a good mood after getting back from that strange place. The thought of it made his smile slip from his face: that place wasn't on the map, and the locals didn't know what went on there; only that it was full of mutants, and they weren't really big fans. It was basically a fundamentalist compound.

He scooped up a six-pack of beers and made his way to the clerk, who wordlessly scanned and bagged the items before telling him the price. He took Sam's money and gave him his change, all while not looking at his face. He was too busy not giving a shit to really pay attention to Sam, which the younger Winchester was pretty pleased with, to be honest. He didn't want a repeat of that clerk back in Nebraska recognising him. _Do I really have that distinctive of a face, anyway? _He wondered to himself.

"Thanks," He told the clerk with a nod. The guy finally looked up at him, and smiled for about a second before looking back at his newspaper. The Washington Post. Looked like someone was aiming high with their aspirations. Sam remembered nicking a few of those from stores just like these when he was about 18, and desperate to go to college. John threw them out when he saw them, muttering about '_damn liberals_' regardless of what the paper was, and not further discussing it with Sam, who silently fumed but didn't say anything either.

When he got outside, it had begun to rain: he decided to head back to the motel. Though he loved the rain, it might ruin the pie, which Dean wouldn't thank him for. He turned away from the store, and headed down the road – only to bump into a small group of youths.

"Watch where you're going, fag," One of them spat at him.

Bemused, Sam looked at him, quickly reading his mind. He couldn't help but smirk and suppress a laugh when he realised the reason the guy was so agitated and confrontational was because he forgot to feed his cat this morning, and didn't want to have to excuse himself from his friends for such a stupid reason. _Aww_.

"Something funny? You retarded, or what?" The same kid asked Sam, whose eyes widened.  
"Uh, I didn't mean to cause any trouble," Sam assured him, and began to turn away.  
"Yeah well you did," One of the other kids hissed at him.

Sam turned around once more, staring in disbelief at the four of them, as two of them circled him so he was surrounded.  
"Listen, I don't think you-" Sam tried to diffuse the situation, but one of the kids butted in, making him curse himself:  
"Oh my god. Look – it's that _guy_," The kid realised.  
"What guy?"  
"Off the TV. The Bank robber," He elaborated.  
". . . Oh yeah," The first guy said, his eyes narrowing. "He's one of _them _then,"

Sam was finding it hard to get a word in edgeways as the four of them discussed him loudly in the middle of the street, drawing looks from passers-by, who did nothing to help him. He scowled at them, and reassessed the situation, trying to get his back to the wall of the building they were against: the most defensible position.

"That was fucked up," The first guy was saying, addressing Sam directly.  
"It's not what you think," Sam countered.  
"Do I look like I give a shit?"

Sam flinched as he felt one of them take his wallet out of his back pocket, "Hey!" He found himself shoved brutally back into the wall as he lunged for his wallet, hitting his head. He dropped his bag in surprise, feeling slightly dazed as he listened to their discussion.  
"He's got ID. Imagine how much we'd get if we handed him in," One of them proposed, his eyes filled with greed and enterprise.  
"We'd be doing the world a favour,"

"I was trying to _stop_ the robbery!" Sam insisted, pulling himself up to his full height again.  
"Yeah, right," Came the derisive response. "Everyone knows, you can't trust a mutant,"

"Probably won't come quietly," He heard one of them mutter, and witnessed the rest of them nod in agreement.  
"He will after _I've_ been at him," One of them promised. He lunged at Sam, who managed to evade him, only to knock into another one; they both barrelled over, falling to the floor. He snatched his wallet from the man's hand, stuffing it back into his pocket as he stood quickly up, landing a quick punch to the face of a third one. He failed to notice one approaching from behind while he did this. Before he knew it, there was a knife pressed to his lower back.

He froze. The knife was pressed right up to the huge keloid scar at the base of his spine. Phantom pain from being fatally stabbed there many years ago blossomed once more.  
_That's what I'm supposed to do, right? Look after my pain-in-the-ass little brother? Sammy? . . . Sam?_

That was what had pushed Dean into making a deal he couldn't back out of with a witch who dealt in black magic. Of course, she wasn't a real witch: some mutants just had powers that seemed so fantastical, so utterly biologically impossible, that people could scarcely believe they were mutants at all, and not witches, or werewolves, or vampires.

This mutant had the power to bring the dead back to life, but the price was that she would take a life in return, in order to become more powerful. Dean had eagerly agreed to trade his own life for Sam's.

The witch had given him a year to live: he'd traded his own life to bring Sam back. The witch – Lilith – had been a last resort. She initially refused his offer, but then realised the potential benefit for herself: every time she took a life, she became more powerful, after all. So, she restored Sam's life in order that she would be able to murder Dean without repercussion a year later, and derive power from his death.

At first, it was unclear why she gave Dean the year to live, rather than simply murdering him. When the deal was up, and she was about to murder his brother, she'd told Sam that she'd been watching them suffer, torn apart by anguish, for a whole year, and it made extremely satisfying and entertaining viewing. She also said she was looking forward to seeing Sam go off the deep end without his brother. She laughed the whole time.

But when Sam came back from the dead all those years ago, it wasn't unblemished: his back was painful, and there was a large scar from where Jake Tally had injured him.

So right now, frozen with a knife to his back, it all came flooding back to Sam: the pain, the betrayal. The strange, agonising sensation of dying.

"You don't want to do this," Sam told his attacker quietly.  
"Shut the fuck up," He replied, pressing the knife harder into Sam's back. He hissed in pain. He needed this guy off. Now.

He swung his elbow back, successfully winding his opponent, but was immediately faced with the other three kids running at him. He threw a hand out, and sent them flying with a force he felt he couldn't for the life of him control. He just stood here in the rain, staring dumbly at three boys soaring through the air, flailing; hitting trash cans when they landed, and groaning in pain.  
"You're dead," Wheezed the guy with the knife, picking himself up. Sam grabbed his bag, and quickly walked away from the group, hoping no one saw what he did. However, as he looked around, he saw an old woman appraising him from along the sidewalk; her eyes peaked out unkindly at him from under her umbrella. He gave her a watery smile, his wet hair beginning to drip into his eyes.

He saw her eyes narrow, and it was clear she'd seen what he did. She'd seen him use his mind to hurt those young men. And she clearly wasn't moving out of his way, and would make a fuss if he tried to get by. She was already reaching for her cell phone.

So, he followed his instincts: turning back, he ran in the opposite direction, further into the city rather than towards the motel. There were few people on the streets; most of them were inside, escaping the downpour.

He immediately heard yelling from the gang, and broke into a run, pulling his hood up with his free hand. He cursed the fact that his attackers had given chase, rather than just leaving him alone.

With his hair in his eyes, and the heavy rain, visibility was near-zero – but he continued to run, taking random lefts and rights and deciding to worry about getting lost later. He could hear the gang hollering from behind him, clearly catching up now they'd recovered from his various take-downs. He still couldn't believe that, after only stopping one little bullet in the past, his telekinesis had progressed to the point of being able to throw three large adolescent men a few metres or so.

That was some quick progression right there. His fear about that, and about getting caught and jumped again with no weapons or backup, fuelled him as he ran.

However, as his assailants were more familiar with the city and had clearly split up a while back, he saw them appear in front of him after taking a shortcut, while the other two caught up behind him. They were around fifty metres away, both running at full speed. He jogged to a stop, wondering what the fuck to do.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a car sped around the corner, slipping slightly in the rain with the squeal of breaks. It was an orange Mustang – late sixties, early seventies – and it was hurtling towards him at full speed. When it reached him, it ground to a halt, and the passenger door opened.

"Get in," He heard a female voice instructed him forcefully. He couldn't see who it was: only a dark, doe-like pair of eyes, with a shining, dangerous quality to them. He just gaped in surprise and disbelief.

However, in that split second . . . He was overwhelmed with a sense of trust; of safety. Hell, that might just have been because she was offering him an out from this shitty situation – but that feeling wouldn't go away, even as he quickly ran through all of the awful situations that could come from getting into some unfamiliar woman's car.  
"Now!" She commanded, and he jumped to obey her, slipping quickly into the car and slamming the door shut.

* * *

_A character you'd like to see? A question you need answered? Something you're curious to hear more about? Let me know by reviewing! I'll try my best. _


	7. Chapter 7

_**AN**__: Sorry about the slow update! Truth be told, I'm ill right now, and I'm also getting ready to move out. Nightmare!_

_Thanks for your reviews and opinions and things. I now have the whole thing meticulously planned, and hopefully you're gonna really enjoy the ride! Thanks for your support, and don't be afraid to leave a review :)_

_EDIT: SORRY FOR THE CONFUSION here is chapter 7!_

* * *

Sam's mysterious saviour sped away from the kids at a speed he would have otherwise considered dangerous, if not for her obvious skill, and the fact that going slow could result in them catching up.

He took his hood down, and swept his hair out of his eyes, looking warily at the woman. She was petite, with very dark hair and eyes. She was beautiful, undoubtedly; she also exuded mystery, but Sam was picking up on something else from her too. Everything about her screamed _trust me. I'm trying to help you. _He didn't see any reason not to act on that instinct, seeing as she'd just saved his life.

She looked in her rear-view mirror as they turned the corner, and smirked to herself mischievously. He ran a hand over his stubble, and considered how close for a moment he'd been to being stabbed in the back again: the kid would have done it, no question. It was always easier to apprehend mutants if they were . . . _Subdued_. Injury usually meant weakened powers. Well – in most cases, anyway.

"Aren't you gonna thank me?" She asked, suddenly looking at him with a piercing gaze.  
"Uh . . ." He felt slightly intimidated, just because she exuded this charisma like he'd never even seen before; because she had, indeed, saved him. ". . . Thanks,"

"You know, from what they say about you, Sam, I was expecting you to be a little scarier," She confessed, her eyes lingering on the damp bag of groceries he'd clung to. The thankfully-waterproof plastic box of a pie was sticking out of the top.  
Sam's jaw tightened, and he looked away from her, looking forwards and into the rainy outside.  
"Yeah well they don't get everything right," He replied shortly. "How'd you know who I am?"  
"I never forget a pretty face," She replied with a smirk, and turned into a multi-story parking lot.

He looked around jerkily, wondering where the hell she was taking him. His hand reached for the door, but she admonished:  
"They're locked. Don't try and break the window, I fucking love this car," She added, not without humour.  
"Where are we going?" He asked, twisting in his seat to get a good look around.  
"Someplace safe. I've heard a lot about you, by the way. Didn't think you'd let a bunch of kids get the drop on you,"  
"Neither did I. Wrong time, wrong place," He admitted, settling back into his previous position after he resigned himself to the fact that he'd just have to wait til he got wherever they were going to escape. They went up a few floors in silence, before he asked: "Who are you?"

She smirked again, and pulled into a space, before turning the engine off and looking in the rear-view mirror. Once she knew it was clear, she turned to him: "I'm Ruby. It's good to meet you, Sam Winchester," She replied, dropping a hand onto his thigh. He eyed it suspiciously for a moment.  
"I don't wanna sound ungrateful, but – how did you know where I was? And why would you help me like that? You don't even know me, and I'm the bank robber on the ten o'clock news," He reasoned.

"Because it's all fucking lies, Sam," She replied, keeping her hand on him and looking him in the eyes. Her gaze was magnetic. "I know you three were trying to save those people, not rob or hurt them," She sighed gently, before continuing: "And it's not fair that the others don't get as much blame as you do. You're not evil. You're not out of control. You're just . . . Different," She smiled softly in understanding at that last word. He found himself smiling back.

". . . Glad someone believes that," He mumbled looking briefly out of the window and into the middle distance.  
"Because it's true! You're special, Sam. But not like they say. You're much, much more than that," She insisted, squeezing his thigh and drawing his gaze again. He found it hard to look away from her; her words were like some kind of antidote to the ill-feeling he'd had towards himself over the past couple of days. Looking at her, he could almost forget about hurting those kids with his mind. And he was stupidly thankful for that right now.

"So do you live around here, then?" He asked, changing the topic eventually. She withdrew her hand, and frowned, beginning to play with her hair.  
"No," She answered, sounding troubled, "I'm here investigating something . . . Something at Devil's Gate,"  
"You too? Did they – did He speak to you?" Sam asked, raising his eyebrows.  
She laughed, though there was a slight bitter tone to it. "No. He and I aren't really on speaking terms," She clarified, her eyes flitting upwards with annoyance. "Anyway. I went over to that compound at mile marker 57, highway 220. They wouldn't let me in – not even when I said I had a sister in there,"  
"Your sister's-"  
"No, Sam," She interrupted with a teasing smile, "I do have a sister, but she's not gonna get accepted into somewhere like that. Believe me,"

Sam smiled at that. If he was honest, he wasn't exactly sure why his brother had been summoned, really.

"But the whole thing is creepy as Hell. It's like . . . People hardly ever leave there, they're all crazy about the guy upstairs, they think they're gonna save the world or something . . . It sounds like a-"  
"Like a fundamentalist compound," Sam finished. She nodded in agreement.

They sat in silence for a moment or two, then looked at his watch: Dean promised he'd be back soon, getting a lift with Charlie.  
"Do you think they'll be gone by now?" He asked, referring to the youths.  
"Yeah. Probably didn't wanna take you to the police anyway. Something tells me they've all got negative past experiences with police stations," She remarked sarcastically. Sam laughed a little at that; he realised that wasn't something he was used to doing, of late. He was grateful to her for that too, now, as well as for rescuing him earlier.

"I'll drop you wherever you want, on one condition," She offered with a cheeky grin.  
"What's that?" He asked, a grin creeping onto his face too.  
"Make sure you're packing next time you go to 7/11. Those places can be super dangerous!" She teased.  
"Shut up," He laughed, blushing and shaking his head at his own stupidity. Of _course _he'd be recognised. There was no way he was getting out of that situation unscathed if not for Ruby. He briefly considered giving her an address a little way away from his motel for safety, but decided that she was trustworthy.  
"Drop me at the Last Stop Motel, if that's okay,"  
"Sure thing," She replied lightly, starting the engine.

Their drive back to the motel was filled with idle discussion and banter – the kind, Sam thought sadly, was usually the kind he had with Dean. That was, when they both weren't so tense they could barely crack a smile, let alone a joke.

"Where are you staying?" Sam asked curiously. He hadn't noticed many other hotels in the area yet.  
"With friends. We're renting an apartment. We thought this was gonna be a long-term thing, and decided to commit,"  
"How many of you?"  
"Oh, you know. Just a few. Nothing too serious," She replied vaguely.

When they pulled up at his room, he turned to her, and gave her one last look over. The longer he stared, the better she looked. He knew it was embarrassing, but he couldn't take his eyes off her.  
"Having a little trouble there, Winchester?" She asked in a lightly-mocking tone, raising an eyebrow.  
"Uh . . ." He mumbled, blushing. Again. What was it with this girl?  
"I never imagined you'd be such a dork," He punched his shoulder playfully. "You forgot your groceries," He hurriedly picked them up as she asked, "Pie?"  
"Cherry. For Dean – he's my brother. It's best to get on his good side with this stuff," He told her, shaking his head at how ridiculous it sounded.  
". . . Right. Anyway, here's my number," She told him, pulling out a pen and writing it on his free hand. "If possible, could you not tell anyone about me, or my friends? I mean, I'm sure your brother's trustworthy and all, but . . . We're trying to keep a low profile. I thought it would be okay with you, cause I felt like I'd be able to trust you, you know?"  
"Yeah – who am _I _gonna tell, right?" He replied sarcastically. "I'm practically a leper,"  
"Not true – I've never seen a leper as handsome as you before,"

He laughed, and got out of the car.  
"I'll be seeing you, Ruby," He told her, leaning down to see her face.  
"Hopefully sooner rather than later," She replied, raising one eyebrow and grinning. He shut the door with a contented little smile, despite the rain still falling on him. He made his way to his room, and unlocked it easily.

He flopped down onto his bed, with little regard for his wet clothes, hair or groceries.  
_Ruby_. Already, he knew he wouldn't be able to stop thinking about her. It was going to be hard to keep her a secret from Dean.

With that thought, he went for a shower.

* * *

Dean watched as Michael paced the room, studying his many plans, displays and packed noticeboards with a pensive face. At one point, the other man received a message on his phone, and cast a curious look at Dean.

Dean regretted eventually taking up the other man's offer to sit down, but it was kind of strange to drink the coffee he'd offered while standing up. He also regretted agreeing to let Cas leave with Anna earlier, when she came and got him in order to let him 'chat' with other people living in the bunker.

The older Winchester noticed with unease that, along with the faces of other people he'd seen around the bunker – Anna, Samadriel, and a few others he didn't know the names of – there were pictures of his own face on one display, along with ones of Charlie and Cas. There was also one of Sam. It had a red cross through it, he noticed, feeling anger boil inside him.

His fingertips tingled, and he noticed them sparking at the ends. He quickly moved his hands under the table, and forced himself to calm down. _I can always burn this stupid damn place down later_.

"Thing is, Dean, there are just so many evil mutants out there," Michael was saying, approaching the board with the faces of his friends and family. "Rogues. I know you know what I mean . . ." He reached up to the board, his finger lingering over the picture of Sam's face, and his voice far away, ". . . You see them every day,"

That just made Dean wanted to torch the place even more.  
"Listen, my brother-" he began, trying to set the record straight with a deep breath to calm himself.  
"Isn't Rogue. Not yet," Michael interrupted, turning around and fixing Dean with a disarmingly earnest look. "But have you thought about what you're going to do? If, and when, it happens?"  
"I figured we'd work it out ourselves. You know, with it being _our business_ and all," Dean snarked back at him.  
"That's exactly the point I'm getting at, Dean. You don't have to do this alone, between the two of you," He sighed, and visibly gathered his thoughts as he thought about the best way to explain this to Dean without him going crazy.

"The thing about the Rogues is that they're organised. More organised than the ordinary, hard-working, tax-paying American mutants are. That's why they're such a problem – a problem we're trying to fix here,"  
"Oh yeah? And how's the God-squad gonna sort 'em out?" Dean asked sarcastically.  
"By getting organised ourselves," Michael asserted with a half-smile.

Dean sighed, scrubbing a hand across his forehead. "I'm listening," He grumbled, wondering what hair-brained plot this guy had worked out.

"Good. Because what we're doing here isn't wrong, Dean – we're not a cult, despite what you might think. This exodus of people the Lord has summoned here . . . We're going to save the world – truly, we are. Making a better future, for both humans and mutants. And despite what you might think, we're not sinister, or evil in any way. We're doing God's work,"  
"I've heard that a lot of times, dude. And people are real quiet about what that actually means," Dean explained dismissively.  
". . . For example – Anna," Michael replied. "She has this power she refers to as 'Angel radio'. She can tune in to any communication frequency she pleases. With our help, she's going to tune in to frequencies used by terrorists, intercepting their plans to harm innocent civilians the world over," Michael enthused. His fervour wasn't shared by Dean.  
"Not for nothing, but I think those guys think they're doing God's work, too," The Man of Letters bit back.

Michael, across the table from the older Winchester, leaned over the table, patting it with his palm to emphasise his confident, assured words: "They're wrong, Dean. They must be stopped . . . And punished,"

There was a long silence, in which Michael withdrew and put his hands on his hips. Dean wondered where that hard-line attitude fit in with Michael's otherwise calm and compassionate rhetoric.

After a while, Dean spoke up. "So you've got it all sewn up. Why do you need us?" Dean asked, leaning back and crossing his arms, trying to remain detached and totally uninterested.  
"Well, have you ever considered a role in the fire service, Dean? Or the military?" Michael quizzed, pointing directly at him.

Dean just sighed. "I've been down this road with the fire service before. I can't. They don't let mutants in. Which you probably know," He added in annoyance.  
"You could do it, you know. I could get you in. Fire-proof guy like you – someone who can put out flames just as good as cold water can . . . You'd be perfect," Michael encouraged.  
"And how are you gonna swing that? Get me to pray a little, sing some hymns or something?" Dean mocked.  
"I've got connections. I could get you into it, with a waiver from the right people, if you agreed to join us. This project's been a long time coming. We just want to provide a good life for mutants, so they don't feel alienated, and go Rogue. That's all I want,"

"What about Cas? And Charlie?"  
"Are you kidding? . . . With powers like that, an Angel like Castiel – he should be a doctor. A healer. He could save thousands. And Charlie, well – you'd be surprised at how much need we have for her right here in the bunker. Imagine what she could do working in government departments, school or hospitals, ensuring they run smoothly from a technological point of view,"  
"So what you're trying to say to me is that you're some kind of big humanitarian, huh? Just want to make the world a better place for everyone?" Dean asked, smiling slightly.  
"Of course, Dean. That's all I want," Michael smiled tightly.

Dean leaned forward, his smile dropping off his face and his eyes stony and cold. He placed his hands on the table, not caring if they left burn marks. "So why not Sammy, then? Huh? What, he's got no use in the real world? He doesn't deserve to be saved, or helped, or whatever?"

Michael sighed, taking a seat opposite Dean, and mimicking his position.

"Sam . . . He sets people on edge. Ever wondered why the media don't like him?" He asked Dean, who just shook his head and laughed bitterly.  
"That's just tabloid douchebags and their need to constantly put people down. Everyone loves a villain. They just haven't figured out yet that Sam ain't the one they're looking for,"  
"You sure about that? We know he's exponential,"  
"Excuse me?" Dean asked, standing suddenly in shock and fury.

"Samandriel just sent me a message," Michael replied, staying seated in an attempt to keep some control. "I'm sure you didn't notice him take one of Sam's hairs from your jacket earlier. He's our resident biochemist. Inhuman intelligence – like a computer. He's been analysing Sam's DNA . . . Truly remarkable, actually. Unlike anything he's ever seen before and working here, well – he's seen plenty . . . We had our suspicions about your brother, but until now they weren't confirmed,"  
"You _suspected_? _I_ didn't even know this kind of mutant existed til two freaking days ago!"  
"It's why people dislike him so much. They feel . . . Uncomfortable around him. He's reading their thoughts, he's seeing their future – he's in their minds, forcing them to do things they don't want to do-"  
"He can't – he _wouldn't _do that!" Dean yelled in indignation.  
"Not _yet_ he can't. But, see – that's why he doesn't fit in. That power simply doesn't have a place in society. However, if you were to, say, bring him in, let us help him-"  
"By which you mean what?" Dean asked suspiciously. Sure, he'd love to be able to reduce the burden from Sam's shoulders – this whole thing about him developing more and more uncontrollable powers was clearly eating at him, as well as his existing ones constantly being on the fritz in a way that was driving him insane – but he wasn't about to hand over his brother to anyone who didn't know what they were talking about completely and utterly.

"We have . . . Some of the best doctors here. They've been necessary. Some of the mutants we've recruited have been a little on the hazardous side, but we've helped . . . Subdue them. Really, now, they live completely normal lives,"

". . . What does that mean?" Dean asked, still distrustful of what it meant to 'subdue' these people.

Michael sighed, and turned back to the pictures of the Men of Letters.  
"It means we can offer you a future where Sam doesn't have to worry about his powers – one where you can be a firefighter, no questions asked, and Castiel and Charlie can help people. It means I can offer you a future outside of this life you've had to live since you were just children. Outside of hunting Rogues, and running from the police and press . . . I can offer you normalcy, if you just join us,"

Dean turned around and walked to the door in silence, his face grey and grim in the wake of these revelations, and Michael's offer regarding both his life, and his brother.  
"You'll think about it?" Michael asked after him, causing him to stop where he stood and consider it for a moment. Then, he walked out, without saying a word.

* * *

_I've finished planning, but before I get writing, let me know - is there anyone you'd like to make an appearance in this fic in particular? Let me know!_

_Also, I should have mentioned this before, but any mistakes are entirely my own - I don't have a beta. __I try really hard to fix every error, but I can't get every one. Thanks for understanding :)_


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